Treachery  series continuation
by Aviv b
Summary: A post-cyberwoman fic.  Ianto must face the consequences of his betrayal. A continuation of the story "Treachery."
1. Prisoner Number 35417

**TITLE: ****Prisoner Number 35417****  
****RATING: **PG-13 - a little bit of violence and bad language; details of a medical exam

**SUMMARY: ****A post-cyberwoman fic. Ianto must face the consequences of his betrayal.**

******A/N: This continues my story 'Treachery'. Some of you asked for a sequel and I was finally able to do a little 'dark' writing. There will be several more parts that will be added as chapters here. Treachery will remain a standalone.****You may want to review Treachery first before reading**

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Owen arrived at the Hub early the next morning. He had gone out drinking, hoping to pick someone up and drown his sorrows in alcohol and meaningless sex. But as he sat at the bar, he began getting progressively angrier as he reviewed his role in Ianto's transfer to UNIT.

When the phone call came, Owen retrieved Ianto from the cells and brought him back to Jack's office. Ianto looked less sure of himself now, not contrite but bewildered and a bit lost. Jack re-handcuffed Ianto's hands in front of him and the three of them went out onto the plass through the tourist office entrance. A UNIT officer had exited a plain white unmarked van with darkened windows and had presented paperwork for Jack and Owen to sign. Once that was finished he turned toward the van and nodded. Two soldiers in fatigues had jumped out of the van. One grabbed Ianto by the collar while the other one pulled a hood over his head. It took only moments for them to roughly hustle Ianto over to the van. They did nothing to prevent Ianto from knocking his head against the doorway of the van and laughed as he jolted back in surprise. Finally one of the soldiers, pushed Ianto's head down as another person in the van pulled him in.

Owen had seen Jack's mask of anger slip when Ianto hit his head on the doorway of the van, but by the time the van had pulled away Jack had suppressed the look of dismay that Owen had glimpsed so briefly.

"Jesus Jack, are you sure you are doing the right thing?"

Jack looked at Owen emotionlessly. "Yes."

"So, do you need me stay and help with a cover story?"

Owen's remark seemed to startle Jack out of his indifference.

"What? No, I'll take care of it. He doesn't have any relationship with his family or any friends so I can do it easily enough."

"Well, I'm off then, I need to have a few drinks."

"Just remember what I told you."

"Yeah you retconned him and set him up with a new identity." As Owen began to walk away, a frightening thought occurred to him. "Jack," he said turning back, "that's not going to work. There is no way Tosh is going to believe that you retconned him, altered all his records and took him to a new location in less than two days."

Jack's eyes narrowed as the truth of Owen's remarks hit him. "I'll call Tosh and Gwen and tell them that I don't want them in the Hub again tomorrow until we complete the cleanup. Tosh can monitor the rift remotely while she and Gwen pack up Ianto's apartment. You and I can set up the cover story."

"Jack, I'm no good at that sort of thing…." Owen's voice trailed out as Jack sneered.

"No you're not, that's while you'll be going over the room where he hid that thing and make sure it's spotlessly clean."

Owen opened his mouth to retort but decided that this wouldn't be the wisest course of action.

"Fine," Owen said as he turned to walk away.

"I want you here by 8 AM Owen, hung over or not."

"Yeah, whatever."

Ianto sat in the van with the hood still over his head. He wasn't sure why they still had him hooded; after all it was obvious that they were taking him to the large UNIT facility just outside London. He could tell when they got on the M4 and when they left the road again about three and a half hours later. After another hour or so the van finally stopped.

He spoke only once during the trip. "Is it really necessary to keep this hood on…?"

He never got to finish his thought as someone smacked him on the back of the head. The blow wasn't hard enough to do any real damage but it was painful enough that it jolted him back into the reality of his situation.

"Shut the fuck up," someone with an Irish accent growled.

Another man laughed. A very upper class voice said, "You'll have plenty of time to talk once we arrive at our destination, Mr. Jones." Ianto reckoned it was the UNIT officer, but there was really no way to know.

He was hustled out of the van and inside a building at practically a sprint. Ianto had no idea where they were going. He just kept running, his course altered occasionally by someone dragging him in one direction or another. He could feel the unforgiving concrete under his feet but had no sense of where he was. The only noise was the sound of his breathing along with four, maybe five other sets of footfalls on the floor. The air had a slight antiseptic smell, but other than that, he was running blind. Finally, they stopped. He heard a door being opened and he was shoved roughly into a new space.

"Ok, he's all yours, doc," the cultured voice said.

Ianto could hear the footsteps of people leaving and the door closing behind him.

"Well Mr. Jones, the first thing we need to do is give you a thorough physical."

Before Ianto could react he felt his clothes being pulled off of him. He instinctively pulled away and winced as he hit his lower back against a table or perhaps a gurney.

Once he was naked, except for the hood, two sets of strong arms lifted him onto the surface of the examination table. The medic proceeded to listen to his heart and lungs, take his blood pressure and test his reflexes. He spoke the whole time, Ianto reckoned it was probably into some type of dictation device.

"Prisoner number 35417. White male, age believed to 23 years old, name recorded as Ianto Siawn Jones. Heart rate is 85 beats a minute and blood pressure is 160 over 100, a bit high, but not unexpected under the circumstances. Lungs sound clear. Medium build. Several scars, the most severe on his left shoulder blade. It is approximately 4 inches long and is typical of a deep laceration. Medical records attribute this to falling debris as patient fled the attack on Torchwood One, London last summer."

"Additional small scars, most unremarkable with the exception of two deep puncture wounds on his left calf. Dr. Owen Harper of Torchwood 3 notes state that these were from a weevil bite about four months ago."

He drew several small vials of blood and lifted the hood just enough to swab Ianto's nose and mouth. _"Well so far not so bad,"_ Ianto thought.

The medic asked Ianto to stand up and walked him over to stand on what he was told was a scale. "Prisoner weighs 160 pounds and stands six foot, one inch tall. His BMI is 21. Dr. Harper's records state that Mr. Jones has had difficulty sleeping since the Battle of Canary Wharf and often skips meals."

He was led back to the table and the exam continued as did the doctor's notes. "Abdominal lymph nodes normal, Testicles descended and normal, no sign of hernias, uncircumcised penis, nothing unusual here." The doctor paused for a moment.

"I need you to assume the position, Mr. Jones."

Ianto hesitated momentarily as he was flooded with fear. His limbs seemed paralyzed and he was helpless to move them.

"Mr. Jones, I'm a doctor, and I'm not trying to hurt you, but I do need to make sure you don't have anything tucked away anywhere. Do you understand me?" Ianto nodded. "Good just let me get this done and then you'll be on your way."

Gripping the table tightly, he felt a cold gloved finger enter him and his legs began to buckle with fear. The doctor droned on, "Anal cavity clean, though a bit pliant indicating prior penetration. Prostate feels normal…turn around please…"

The doctor continued to record his notes for a few minutes. "Ok, back on the table please. I'm going to give you a tetanus booster as I don't see a record of you having had one in the last ten years. Please don't move; I don't want the needle to break."

Ianto nodded. He felt the cool swipe of the alcohol swab and then the prick of a needle. The solution burned. And then the burn began to spread over his whole body. He felt arms once again holding him place. _"They're killing me,"_ was the last conscious thought he had.

The doctor removed the hood and continued his dictation noting a small scar over Ianto's left eyebrow and a large bruise on the right side of the face. "Dr. Harper's notes indicate that during an altercation two days prior to this exam, prisoner 35417 was physically thrown about ten feet landing on his right side, his face impacting a concrete floor. Prisoner lost consciousness for about 5 minutes but was revived and a subsequent exam did not identify any cranial or nerve damage. Some confusion and verbal outbursts consistent with a concussion were noted."

He concluded by noting that no psychological testing of the prisoner had been performed, but the prisoner seemed unusually docile and cooperative. Finally he finished his notes and quickly covered Ianto's prone body with a sheet.

"Well he's all yours," he said, turning to the UNIT officer and the two soldiers who had remained in the room.

As Ianto was wheeled out on the gurney, the doctor sighed and took off his gloves. _"Poor bastard,"_ he thought as Ianto's body disappeared out of view, _"you have no idea what's in store for you."_


	2. Operation Clean Sweep

**Operation Clean Sweep **- All traces of Ianto's existence are destroyed. Rated PG

**Thank you for all the nice comments!**

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Tosh and Gwen were greeted at the door by Owen when they arrived at Ianto's flat. He handed Tosh a key and tried to quickly make his exit.

"Owen," Tosh said putting a hand on shoulder as he moved past her, "wait up a minute."

"_Great,"_ Owen, thought, _"just what I need, interrogation by Tosh."_ He steeled himself as he turned to face her and Gwen.

"How is Ianto doing? What's happening to him?"

Owen had to restrain himself from losing his composure. What could he possible say to Tosh, 'just fine for a man who is imprisoned by UNIT?' He wasn't kidding when he had reminded Jack that deceptive stories were not his forte; that was always Tosh and Ianto's territory.

"Owen, are you OK?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just got a lot on my mind. Jack's created a new identity for Ianto and is taking him to a new location today. And before you ask, no, I don't know anything about his new identity or whether he's still in Cardiff or even Wales for that matter."

"But wouldn't Jack need some help…"

"Tosh, leave it. Jack been working at Torchwood a long time and believe it or not, he knows what he's doing. Probably one of his primary responsibilities as a young recruit."

Tosh began to speak again but Owen quickly silenced her. "Seriously Tosh, Jack was so angry after you two left that I was sure he was going to execute Ianto. So let's be grateful that he calmed down." He saw the wheels turning in Tosh's head and knew just what she was thinking. "And please don't go meddling to find out where Ianto is. You could be signing his death warrant if you were to do that."

Gwen watched the exchange silently as she too sensed that something wasn't right. While she had almost been converted by the cyberwoman, she was shocked to think that Ianto might have been executed. Punished, sure, fired, maybe but even retconned seemed awfully harsh.

Once Owen had left Tosh and Gwen went into Ianto's flat. They were both shocked to see that it was a drab small studio flat, furnished with only a mattress on the floor a small chest of drawers and numerous sealed boxes.

"That's odd," Gwen remarked as she looked at the boxes. "Did Owen box up stuff before we got here?"

Tosh walked over to a box and tore the seal open. She gasped at what she found. "Gwen, I don't think these boxes have ever been open, come over and have a look."

Inside the box were women's clothing, shirts and some lingerie. "You don't think…"

"I'm pretty sure these are Lisa's clothes." Tosh sighed. "He really did believe he could find a cure for her. And look what its cost him."

"You forget that I was almost killed by that..that…thing."

"No I haven't. But here you are safe, and Ianto has had at least three years of his memory stripped away, maybe more, and a confusing new life to face."

Tosh explained that all memories regarding Lisa or Torchwood would have to be erased. "Which means he's going to wake up in a strange place with a huge gap in his memories with no friends or family to turn to."

"That's horrible." All Tosh could do was nod in agreement.

In the end they opened up all the sealed boxes. Jack had ordered them to check every possible place for any hidden cyber-technology or other items that were alien in origin. In addition to Lisa's clothes and personal items, they found books and DVDs and much of Ianto's possessions that one would expect to find in his flat.

Gwen was practically in tears. "He never even unpacked! He came home to this dreary flat with just a bed and some clothes."

"If he even came home," Tosh replied as she walked into the tiny kitchen and opened a cabinet. It was completely empty. A thorough search of the kitchen found one cabinet with a few dishes and cups and one drawer with a mismatched assortment of flatware. The refrigerator was empty except for a couple cans of beer.

Tosh turned on the kitchen taps and there was a sputtering sound until some brackish water ran out. It took some time before the water ran clear. The same was true of the bathroom taps on both the sink and tub. It was clear that he hadn't been to his flat very often and certainly not in recent days.

They resealed the cartons and boxed up the remainder of Ianto's possessions. _"That's so sad,"_ Tosh thought as she realized that all of his unboxed possessions fit into three cardboard cartons.

Their call to the Hub was answered by Owen who told them that Jack hadn't returned from relocating Ianto but that he had left instructions for them to leave everything boxed to be dealt with later.

"Do you need us back at the Hub?" Tosh asked.

"No, the rift has been quiet. Jack said he would contact you both later with instructions for tomorrow."

Tosh felt a flutter of unease as she wondered why they couldn't come back to the Hub.

As if Owen could read her thoughts, he continued, "Yeah, I'm going through Ianto's workstation but Jack wants to check the Archives personally before both of you return. Said something about a bomb or a booby trap."

"But he let you stay."

"Guess I'm more expendable," Owen said, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

"Uh…Ok, Owen, we'll see you whenever, I guess."

Tosh looked at Gwen who shrugged. She hadn't been part of the team very long and she didn't think Owen said anything out-of-line. She noticed that Tosh was exhausted. Well, Ianto was closest with Tosh so that was understandable.

"Would you like to go get a drink?" she asked tentatively. Tosh did not seem like the go out and gossip type of co-worker, but still it was worth a try.

"I think I'll pass. I just want to go home and curl up with a good book…and have a good cry."

Back at the Hub, Owen exhaled as he hung up the phone. Looking over at Jack's office he saw Jack in total concentration on his computer screen. Owen had finished his clean up some time ago and had searched Ianto's work station. Not much of interest there, Owen thought. The usual paper, pens, lists for supplies. Nothing, not one thing that would have hinted at the horror that Ianto was hiding downstairs.

He had offered to check the archives, but Jack had declined his assistance. He had organized all his supplies in the medical bay, twice, and wanted to leave. Heading into Jack's office he recounted what Tosh had told him.

"And you told her I was still away and I would call her and Gwen later?" Owen nodded. "Good."

"Well if there's nothing else…"

"Just one more thing. Let me grab my coat. We're going to Ianto's flat to move everything out."

"Are we going to the offsite storage facility?"

"No. We're bringing everything back here and incinerating it."

"But I thought protocol said we are to store everything in case further investigation was warranted."

"Any further investigation will be handled by UNIT. As far as we are concerned, after today, Ianto Jones ceases to exist. In fact he never existed. His name will never be spoken by any Torchwood employee in my hearing again."


	3. Creating a Monster

**TITLE: ****Creating a Monster (Part 4 of the Treachery Series)**  
**RATING: **PG-13 (this chapter) , Overall NC-17  
**WARNING: **Graphic Violence  
**SUMMARY: ****A post-cyberwoman fic. Ianto is transformed by UNIT.**

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Jack contacted the team four days after the Cyberwoman was killed letting them know it was safe to return to work.

"I didn't find any evidence of sabotage or a bomb, I've swept the entire Hub for any unusual chemical or biological traces and I believe we are clear. Owen and I have packed up Ianto's workstation and a new Admin will be joining us next week. I want everyone here by 9 AM tomorrow."

The next day Jack assembled the team and explained that Ianto had been relocated out of the country. He told them that Ianto had a new identity and that some friends of Jack would be helping Ianto to adjust to his new circumstances.

"And please don't go poking around. I know its tempting, but his crime is a treasonable offense under our charter. If the Queen's staff or the Prime Minister ever gets wind of this, he's a dead man. And I can't guarantee your safety either if this leaks. So as cruel as this sounds, Ianto Jones doesn't exist, never existed, and will never exist again. Are we clear?"

Everyone nodded yes. "Good." Jack returned to his office certain that Tosh wasn't going to follow his orders. Owen already knew where Ianto was, Gwen hadn't really had much interaction with Ianto, but Tosh, his brave genius would be tempted to just do a little looking. He smiled knowing that he had laid a false trail so detailed and believable that her curiosity would be satisfied. And UNIT would be sending him false updates periodically that he would keep buried where only the most determined searcher could find them. And he had no doubt that Tosh would succeed eventually and then she would be placated. He'd been running cons and faking paper trails for longer than she'd been alive. Everything would be just fine.

Ianto held out as long as he could. He had expected most of what happened to him since arrived at the UNIT facility. Hours of endless interrogation. Sleep deprivation. Days of total darkness followed by days of bright lights. Temperature extremes. Threats, bribes, punishments and rewards. White noise and total silence. He was surprised that he was only periodically roughed up a bit; he was never seriously beaten or sexually assaulted. That was something, at least, to be grateful for.

Mind probes, he reckoned he hated those the most. It was such an invasion of privacy, looking at his innermost thoughts, discovering his secrets and then using them to bend his will. Bend him they did, but he still didn't break.

Then came the drugs. Drugs that made him agitated, drugs that made him feel powerful, drugs that induced hallucinations. Drugs that left him sniveling in his own snot and urine back in his cell. He felt himself slipping but hung on to his sanity and his identity with every last bit of strength that he had.

Finally, they combined the drugs and the mind probes and Ianto broke. He couldn't remember who he was, or where he was, or even why he was. And that was exactly what UNIT had hoped to achieve. Jack hadn't been kidding when he told Ianto that UNIT would be able to use his talents. UNIT not only could use him, they could enhance him. And they did.

They stripped out his decency, his morality, his conscience and his will. False memories were implanted. New knowledge imparted and a new identity created for him. He even had a new appearance. They had surgically altered his face, particularly his nose which was a distinguishing characteristic. He was still very handsome, but blander, more 'average' less likely to attract notice. Yes, UNIT had big plans for Prisoner Number 35417. With his memory and intelligence, natural cunning and almost preternatural ability to fade into the background, they had no doubt that their investment in him would pay off handsomely.

Six months after the former Ianto Jones had been taken by UNIT the transformation was complete.

The four UNIT officials watched the demonstration from behind a one way mirror. Prisoner number 35417 walked into the empty room along with his handler. He was dressed smartly, but not ostentatiously in a dark grey suit. A few moments later a blindfolded young woman, chained and dressed in a red prison jumpsuit was brought in by a guard. The guard left and the handler turned and spoke.

"You know what you have to do." Ianto nodded. The handler left the room to join the UNIT officials observing the exercise.

The officials watched in horrified fascination as Ianto circled the woman kneeling on the ground. Ianto reached down and tore the blindfold off. _"My god,"_ one of them thought, _"she's practically a child."_

The girl was begging him for mercy, pleading with him to not hurt her. He smiled and knelt down beside her. He grabbed her and brutally kissed her, biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. As he went to stand, her head seemed to explode. In one swift motion, Ianto had pulled his weapon from its holster under his suit jacket and delivered a lethal bullet just under her chin. Ianto smiled and closed his eyes as a kind of ecstasy overcame him. A few moments later he had moved over to examine what was left of the woman.

As Ianto casually examined his handiwork, one of the UNIT officers felt his legs going out from under him. Another ran from the room as she became physically ill. The two remaining officials and the trainer stood riveted as Ianto examined what was left of the girl's skull, the blood spatter on the wall behind her and shook his head in disgust.

"He's unhappy with that shot. It's one thing to practice on mannequins, quite another to shoot a live person. He needs to change the angle of the gun slightly so that the bullet stays inside the skull. Much neater, really the only way to effectively kill someone with a gun in a public place without being noticed." The trainer laughed. "We'll work on that tomorrow; fortunately, we have some more live targets to practice with."

An officer turned to the trainer. "Is he really as cold-blooded as he looks? And what's to stop him from turning on us?"

"No, he's not that cold-blooded, he's much, much worse. He has no moral compass; he does exactly what he is ordered to do. And his neural implants not only encourage him to comply, they reward him with a chemical stimulus that produces a very pleasant sensation reinforcing the desired behavior. And we have additional rewards for him when he completes a mission successfully. On the other hand, if he falters, the chemical stimulus is quite unpleasant. In experiments, prisoners have killed their own family members to obtain the pleasurable and avoid the unpleasurable sensations."

"I don't know…" the other official started to say.

"Look," the trainer said bluntly. "You wanted a stone cold killer, a ruthless, dependable, untraceable assassin and that's exactly what you'll have when I'm done with him."

With that, the trainer walked out of the observation booth closing the door behind him.

"We've created a monster," one of the remaining officers said almost in a whisper.

The second officer sniffed, "Not really, though I suppose you could call him the first true Cyberman."


	4. Mission Accomplished

Treachery - Mission Accomplished

A/N: Please note that regardless of appearance, all characters are above the legal age of consent.

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A month after Ianto left Torchwood, Tosh couldn't stand not knowing what had happened to Ianto. She began a discrete search of Jack's files carefully covering her tracks at each step. It took her twelve weeks before she hit pay dirt.

A picture of Ianto. There he was, walking through a park with manicured lawns followed by some other people. Digging further she finally found his new identity and location. Keith Griffiths, living in Edinburgh, working as a local tour guide. She chuckled to herself thinking of Ianto actually working in the tourist industry.

There were a few more pictures – Ianto with his tour guide colleagues in their navy blazers, a surveillance photo of Ianto at a pub chatting up an attractive young lady, and Ianto riding a bicycle on a back country road. He looked fit and relaxed and seemed to be adjusting well to his new life.

She searched a bit further and found some records of training by the tour company. She smiled when she saw the name of the class instructor – Archie McDougal. So that was the friend that Jack said would be helping Ianto adjust. And probably keeping an eye on him as well.

She wanted to know more, but decided that she had enough information to put her mind at rest. Ianto was safe and happy and doing well in his new life. She retraced her steps, making sure that all evidence of her search was destroyed. For reasons she didn't fully understand, she downloaded a copy of the picture of Ianto and his tour group onto a DVD. She knew she couldn't risk storing it on a computer at the Hub, but she could look at it on her personal laptop at home which wasn't wired into the Torchwood network. It was the only photo she had of Ianto and she knew that having it would help to soothe away any fears she had about Ianto's safety.

In his office, Jack was following her every move. He knew exactly how deep she had dug (surprisingly not as far as he anticipated), and that she had copied the picture. Jack smiled. He was glad he had thought to have had UNIT create a series of pictures that would be sent to him along with fake updates from Archie. They were flawless, altered pixel by pixel so that the forgery was undetectable. And of course, Archie's updates (created by the very UNIT team that kept an eye on Torchwood Two), were accompanied by highly compressed versions of the photos. They had even sent a few blurry ones with one report complete with Archie bemoaning the complicated nature of digital cameras.

Jack himself had no idea what was really going on with Ianto. And while he would sometimes miss Ianto's coffee and his dry sarcastic wit, he convinced himself that his only other choice would have been execution or retconning Ianto back to high school. As the months passed, he almost began to believe that Ianto was working as a tour guide in Scotland. But in the deepest part of his soul, he knew that Ianto was in a UNIT prison, never to be seen again.

TwTwTw

After eight months with UNIT Ianto, once known as Prisoner 35417 and now known as Agent John Thomas was deemed ready for his first assignment. It was a theft from a secure government lab in Cambridge and his UNIT handlers were astonished at how easily he was able to slip past security, find the designated files and walk out of the facility unnoticed all during working hours.

John/Ianto felt a rush of pleasure as he returned to his Cambridge hotel room. His handlers were waiting for him, heaping praise on his performance. They went out for drinks and John found himself being chatted up by a stunning woman about his age. His handlers laughed, told him to have a good night and left him on his own. They had nothing to worry about; she was a UNIT pleasure worker and would reward John enthusiastically for his successful mission.

More difficult missions followed, and each time John performed flawlessly. His handlers monitored him from UNIT headquarters in London, but John operated on his own. He followed his orders to the letter but was still able to improvise when he had to. In less than two years, John was promoted to the most prized agent position…Assassin.

With his new position he was provided with a beautiful flat in London, a sleek black BMW and a much higher pay grade. He wouldn't be given an assignment for a number of months and UNIT made sure their top agents didn't risk compromising their safety or identity by making friends outside of the organization of visiting the local trade. John made extensive use of the pleasure workers and was astonished that whoever showed up was invariably exactly what he needed. He wasn't sure how UNIT knew his moods so well, but he couldn't complain. His life was amazing.

He had always wanted to be James Bond, and now he really was, right down to the fast cars, beautiful people to shag, adventure and excitement. He couldn't fathom how he, John Thomas, from a working class family in Newport, had gone from doing odd jobs in London to UNIT Assassin. He knew he had had an accident while painting the outside of a house; apparently it had belonged to a high ranking UNIT official. All he knew was that he woke up in a hospital with three years of his memories missing and a man in uniform watching him with the gravest concern.

"I'm so sorry; I had no idea that the ladder was defective."

John Thomas had squinted at him, not knowing who he was. Gradually, he was able to piece together the whole story; how he had seen a notice pinned to a bulletin board at a local job center for someone who had needed a painter. How he had been hired to do the job, and was furnished with the paint and ladder by the homeowner. And how at some point as he painted the top story of the two-story house ("True White Exterior Paint" – funny what he remembered) the ladder gave way and he fell sustaining a skull fracture. In hospital, his brain swelled and the doctors put him into an induced coma. When he woke up a week later, he couldn't remember anything from the last three years. His head hurt a lot, but the staff reassured him that it was do to the plates and screws they had used to put his fractured skull back together.

And then the homeowner had visited and said he wanted to help him get a new start. UNIT was an amazing place, and he wasn't bothered when he learned that he would be involved in criminal activity. Hell, he had a pretty extensive rap sheet already, (he was a bit surprised when UNIT first showed it to him) including shoplifting, petty theft, breaking and entering, simple assault (yeah that fight in the pub, he could remember it like it was yesterday) as well drug possession.

More training was involved prior to his first assignment in his new role. These weren't mere thefts or arsons or bombings that John would be involved in, they were murders of high ranking members of government and business. The security surrounding these individuals and the search for the killer would be intense so John learned about disguises and makeup, as well as new methods of self-defense and sophisticated weapons to kill. His handlers drove him hard but John drove himself even harder. He was determined to be the perfect Assassin, to never perform at anything less than one hundred percent. He returned to his flat at the end of each work day, mentally and physically exhausted. A quick dinner, a little television and he was ready for bed.

As he slept he began having the strangest dreams, ones which he remembered every detail of when he awoke. A naked young man, probably in his mid teens stood before him. He was impossibly beautiful, dark thick hair and large brown eyes, long eyelashes, his lower lip full and pouting. He was almost effeminate in his beauty, his soft nearly hairless olive skin unblemished except for a small tattoo of a sun above his heart. But as John's eyes panned down the stranger's body, it was obvious that he was no child. His dick was erect and John noticed that he was generously endowed and cut. John would invariably wake from this dream either fully hard or already spent. The boy (as John came to call him) haunted him every night, each dream taking him a little further into this new reality.

The night before his first mission he dreamt that the boy turned in a circle displaying himself for John's approval. He knelt in front of John, unzipped his trousers, released John's cock from his pants and opened his sensuous mouth. John abruptly woke up. His erection ached for relief. He closed his eyes, picturing the boy once again as he quickly stroked himself to completion. Sighing, he looked at his clock and saw that it was almost 6 AM. No point going back to sleep, he had a ten AM flight and some preparation to do before he left his flat.

John Thomas boarded the flight to Istanbul a little nervous but confident that this mission wouldn't present any problem. And he was right. Dressed like a typical tourist in khakis and a polo shirt, he tracked down the Turkish Minister of Finance UNIT wanted eliminated. Strolling through the Grand Bazaar he examined some clay tiles and bargained a bit over the price finally buying a few. It was easy enough to work his way over to where the Minister was walking with his wife and young son. Using his purchases as cover for his weapon John bumped into him in the crowded, narrow aisle. And in that moment, John had released the switchblade between the Minister's ribs, retracted it and apologized for his clumsiness and moved on. By the time the official realized he was injured John was two rows down casually buying a silk scarf for his 'girlfriend' back home.

He stuck around just long enough to see his target fall and a crowd begin to gather. Leaving through a side exit, he casually walked back to his hotel in the Old City. He wiped the blade with the scarf he had purchased and discarded the knife in a pre-designated bin outside a small café where it would be retrieved by a clean up agent. About a block from his destination he felt the familiar rush of pleasure that accompanied the conclusion of a successful assignment.

Arriving back at his hotel room he entered and found it empty. He was a bit disappointed; he had heard that his reward would be given to him at the successful conclusion of a mission. He shrugged, undressed and inspected his clothing carefully. No blood to be found anywhere, an excellent result.

He took a long hot shower, letting the spray wash away the tension he'd been holding inside. Stepping out of the shower he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped into the main area of the suite.

His mouth fell open and then formed a smile as he looked at the naked boy standing in front of him. It was the boy that John had seen in his dreams. The boy's cock was flaccid and he stroked himself lightly as he slowly turned around for John's inspection. John felt his groin tighten as he studied the taught buttock and strong legs on display. When the boy turned back to face him he was completely erect, his thick cock jutting out proudly. John felt his own cock stirring beneath the towel. Staring directly at John, the boy spoke for the first time.

"Do you like what you see?"

John felt a little light-headed as his blood rushed to his own cock and he became fully aroused. He swallowed hard, dropped his towel and nodded.


	5. A Suitable Reward

**RATING: **Mature

**WARNING: **Graphic sex . If this isn't your thing, it can be skipped without losing any important plot points. Please note that all characters, regardless of appearance are assumed to be above the age of consent.  
**SUMMARY: ****A post-cyberwoman fic. Ianto(John) receives his reward for the completion of his first successful assassination.**

* * *

Before John said a word, the boy was kneeling at his feet taking John's cock in his hands. His long sensuous fingers held him firmly. He swirled his tongue around the head and looked up to see John's reaction. The chemical stimulation of John's brain was so strong that he was in a near ecstatic state. He felt his cock being surrounded by warmth and then…agh…he felt teeth running along the base of the head. John thrust into the hot pliant mouth then pulled back quickly not wanting to choke the boy. The boy smiled at him and slowly re-swallowed most of John's cock. The boy's hands were on John's buttocks pulling John deeper. John began to thrust lightly as he wound his hands through the boy's dark thick hair. He felt the boy rhythmically sucking him as he pulled him deeper at an ever quickening pace. He felt another surge of pleasure, _'Oh yeah,'_ and began to fuck the boy with more force. The boy moaned in pleasure and John increased his pace as he felt his climax nearing. As he felt his balls draw up, he began to pull back but the boy dug his nails into John's cheeks holding him deep as John came. The boy continued to suck every last drop from him as John felt his legs giving way.

When his head cleared, John found he was lying on his back on the bed. The boy was standing next to the bed biting his lower lip in worry.

"It's OK," he said reaching out to the boy.

The boy smiled in relief and joined him on the bed. John quickly pushed the boy on his back and straddled him pinning him down at the hips. John leaned down and kissed the boy tasting the remnants of his come on the boy's mouth. The full lips parted allowing John's tongue to explore. Far from passive, the boy sucked on John's tongue as his hands lightly scratched John's back. As John ended the kiss, he lingered to suck on the boy's full lower lip. As he felt the boy re-stiffening beneath him he bit the lip hard enough to draw blood. The boy moaned, closed his eyes and arched his body up as he gave himself over to John's will. John licked the blood off his lip and kissed the boy deeply again. He groaned as he tasted his come and the boys blood together. He sucked on the boy's lip again, drawing more blood. The boy was panting and gleaming with sweat as John moved to suck on an earlobe and then trailed his tongue down to a pulse point on the neck. As he sucked that spot, the boy gasped and pushed his groin against John's.

John straddled the boy rotating his hips against the hard cock beneath him. John twisted the boy's left nipple and watched the boy squirm.

"You like that?" The boy nodded. John took the other nipple into his mouth sucking and nipping it. He pulled off using his teeth to pull up on the nipple as he did so. The boy trembled. As he twisted the boy's left nipple harder he could feel the boy's shaking increase.

"You're my whore," John growled. "Mine. I can do anything to you and you won't resist, will you?"

"No, your pleasure is mine. I was dreamed by you, created for you, I exist only to fill your desires."

John smiled. He wasn't sure how his handlers had known about his dreams, but he didn't care. He wanted to own this boy completely, touch every inch of skin, taste his sweat and come, smell the musky scent of his arousal and claim him until he begged for release. John move down and licked the boy's soft inner thigh from just above the knee to his pelvis. At the top of the thigh John sucked a spot until a bruise appeared. He buried his face into the boy's nearly hairless crotch feeling the heat from his stiff cock. He licked away the small bead of moisture from the tip of the boy's cock and rolled his balls gently in one hand. As he did so he began to suck the boy's other thigh leaving a matching love bite to his first. "Mine."

The boy moaned and thrust against John. "Fuck me," the boy whispered. John growled. He rolled over pulling the boy on top of him.

"So beautiful" he whispered as he ran his hands down the lithe body poised over him. One hand moved down to stroke the boy's cock while the other reached around to finger the boy's hole. He wasn't surprised that one finger, even two fingers slid in easily. As he started to stretch the entrance further, the boy pulled away shaking his head 'no.' He stroked John back to hardness and then positioned himself over John's cock. In one slow continuous movement the boy lowered himself until John was fully seated inside him. He rode John with abandon, his eyes closed and his head thrown back in ecstasy. John thrust back up relishing the heat and tightness surrounding his member. John smiled as he realized that the boy was receiving his own chemical rush for a job well done.

John stroked the boy's cock in time with his own thrusts and watched as the boy came completely undone. He was moaning and fully impaled himself over and over onto on John's cock. Finally his movements became more erratic. A few more hard strokes and John felt the boy tightening around him. With a groan the boy was finally coming, jets of come coating John's belly. The tightening around his own cock sent John over the edge. Once again he felt the chemicals rushing to his brain overwhelming him.

When his head cleared for a second time, he was alone in the room, cleaned and tucked into bed, the covers pulled over him. There was no trace of the boy. The last thing he remembered was the boy whispering "My name is Carlos."


	6. Failure Is Not An Option

**TITLE: ****Faiure Is Not An Option**

**RATING: **PG-13  
**WARNING: **Graphic violence, character death.  
**SUMMARY: ****Tosh continues her search for Ianto. Ianto(John) is part of an unsucessful mission.**

* * *

"So, anything new and exciting happening today?" Liz asked as she handed Tosh a cup of coffee.

"No, the rift is quiet, the Weevils are staying in the sewers, no suspicious incidents anywhere near Cardiff and no calls from UNIT or the PM expected."

"That's good; I just found another small storage closet in the 4th sub basement that's chocked full of odd gadgets. No idea what they are and they don't appear in any of the data bases."

Tosh shook her head. It was amazing that even after all this time, there were still unexplored areas of the Hub. Liz had been with them almost three years, bright, energetic and a bit nosy. Jack didn't seem to mind her snooping; as he told Tosh early on, "this one comes with no baggage, that I can guarantee."

And Tosh had to admit that she was harmless enough, a decent archivist, quiet and unassuming and, as a bonus, she liked to bake. The treats on everyone's birthday were a nice touch; "_if only she could make a decent cup of coffee," _Tosh thought as she took a sip.

"Do you want me to come down with you this afternoon and see what we can sort out?" Tosh offered. "_Why not," _she thought_, "it's not like I have anything else to do at the moment."_

"That'd be great," Liz answered looking a bit distracted. "Hey, what's going on in Oman," Claire asked as she looked over Tosh's shoulder at the computer. Tosh always had one computer set on a local news feed in order to spot anything unusual being reported. Occasionally when major events occurred in other countries a scroll of red text traveled across the screen.

"Attempted assassination of Oman's Sultan, Qaboos bin Sa'id Al 'Bu Sa'id fails," the scroll read. "Possible Western involvement suspected." The text went on to say that various sources were blaming the UK, the US, Israel, other unnamed western powers and even the UN.

Tosh shrugged. "Thank goodness it's got nothing to do with us." Just then a somewhat fuzzy surveillance photo flashed across the screen.

"Picture of suspected assassin released to Interpol."

Liz laughed. "He looks a bit like that guy, what was his name, who used to work here."

"You mean Ianto? That's impossible."

"I mean the suit, anyway. Certainly not the blond hair, and didn't he have that typical turned up Welsh nose?"

Tosh stared at the grainy picture. "It's a nice suit, but no, the body is too muscular, the hair and nose are all wrong, and the forehead isn't as high. And this guy looks a bit older. But other than that, he could be Ianto's twin."

Liz laughed in embarrassment. "Yeah, guess I was thinking about him because I found a file with his picture in it a few days ago."

Tosh felt a shiver run up her spine. "A file? What kind of file?"

Liz snorted. "It's his original personal file." Seeing the look on Tosh's face, Liz rolled her eyes. "Yes, snoopy Liz took a peak. Nothing interesting beyond his history at Torchwood One and subsequent nervous breakdown after being attacked by two weevils. You should see some of the other files, that Suzie, now she was an interesting character."

Tosh sighed with relief. It was just a decoy file in case any new employees got curious about their former archivist. Tosh had forgotten that she was the person who created the file at Jack's request. They had all agreed that a story about Ianto not being able to cope after a weevil attack was the most benign but realistic explanation that they could devise. If pressed, like Gwen had been by P.C. Andy, the story was that he had a new job and at his request, and he didn't want any contact with anyone from his time in Cardiff.

Tosh spent the afternoon working with Liz in examining the mysterious items in the storage closet. Most of the items look like exotic weapons, but none of them worked. A few made noises or had flashing lights, but there was nothing discernibly dangerous about them. Around 4 PM Jack came down to the sub-basement to see how they were doing.

"So what's this with futuristic weapons that don't work," he asked. Liz showed him the items and Tosh began a long explanation of how they had tried to test them when Jack burst out laughing. He held up his hand signaling Tosh to stop.

"I forgot all about these," he said chuckling. "They are a collection of toys that came through the rift. Around 1975, I think." He picked up one of the ones that looked like a futuristic gun and pointed it at them. "Watch you two, or I'll have to shoot you with my paralyzing ray gun."

"Very funny," Tosh replied. "Why didn't you just incinerate them?"

"You know, they are very good replicas of some early 22nd century weapons. I think I meant to catalogue them as toys but also describe what the real weapons were like for addition to the database."

"That never happened, did it?" Liz asked as she looked at Jack with exasperation.

"Guess not. I'll tell you what, if the rift remains quiet the three of us will sit down tomorrow and begin to work through them, OK?"

That seemed reasonable, so they boxed up the toys and brought them up to Jack's office.

"Ok, why don't you two head off home. No point in hanging about. We'll get started on these first thing tomorrow."

As Tosh and Liz left his office, he smiled to himself. Liz sometimes reminded him of Ianto. He reckoned the need for everything to be in its proper place was inherent to the profession. And the look on her face as she came…well, no point in going there, he thought. Instead he pulled up the latest report from UNIT on Ianto's progress. He snickered as apparently the tour agency had given Ianto a promotion. He wondered if he should tell UNIT that the reports weren't really necessary anymore. Tosh hadn't attempted to look for anything in almost two years, Gwen never had, Owen had started to once about a year ago, but had given up after about an hour of frustration as he was unable to penetrate the simplest of security walls.

And then there was Liz, their very own Miss Nosy Parker. She didn't know anything about Ianto except what she had been told, but took a peak at the progress reports every couple of months. No, best to keep the reports coming. Couldn't do any harm.

Later in the evening Tosh sat at home trying to figure out what was bothering her. She was a bit bored at work lately, and she knew that some of her unease came from unnatural quietness of the rift. In her experience, periods of low activity were often followed by a sharp spike bringing some very dangerous thing or things to Cardiff.

But it was something else as well. All day and all evening, Ianto had been rattling around her brain. What was he doing? How was he doing? Did he have a new girlfriend or boyfriend? Maybe she could take a look at Jack's files… She admonished herself, _"Don't do this Tosh, you've only got six months to go before you are free of UNIT, don't risk it."_

She sighed and went over to her laptop and began to search.

He couldn't believe this was happening. He'd completed ten missions without as much as a hiccup. Now this one had to go tits-up. As he stealthily made his way to the rendezvous point, he discarded the blond wig behind a house, disposed of the brown contacts onto the street, threw his suit jacket, tie and shirt into a trash bin to reveal the polo shirt underneath. "_Nothing to be done with the torn pants, just walk on, look casual_." Slipping on his dark sunglasses he pushed his own short dark curls back on his head and moved quickly toward safety.

They picked him up in a town car with darkened windows and a Russian Federation Flag. He sat in back with a man in a dark suit on either side. He couldn't see the driver as the back of the sedan was separated from the front by darkened Plexiglas. Nobody said a word the whole time they were driving. They pulled into a courtyard and John shivered as they hustled him inside. He was ushered up some stairs and into what looked to be an ordinary apartment.

Two additional men entered the room and ordered him to sit. As they debriefed him, he felt increasingly uncomfortable. It was almost as if his brain was turning on him, making him feel edgy and nervous. The four men were professional, nodding as he explained that the guard at the front gate who was supposed to be already taken care of was in place when he arrived and wouldn't grant him admittance. He had knocked the guard out and moved forward to complete the mission, but, as they explained to him, another guard had come along, seen the unconscious sentry and set off the central alarm system. John had been able to escape by climbing over a barb-wired brick wall at the back of the compound. He had been unaware that there was a security camera near there; fortunately the blond wig would help to throw Omani security and Interpol off track.

"We realize that this is not primarily your fault. We want to assure you that the agent who failed to remove the gate guard has been dealt with."

John felt a little nauseous, his heart was pounding and cold fear ran through him. His head was throbbing and it was hard for him to concentrate. A small buzzing sound seemed to surround him; the whole situation felt surreal.

"Of course, we can't allow you to go undisciplined."

John felt it increasingly difficult to breathe. He tugged at the collar of the polo shirt trying to get some air.

"Relax, we're not going to hurt you," one of the men said nodding at the two men who brought him to this apartment. The two men exited through the same door the interrogators had entered. There was a sound of footsteps and the door was flung open. The two men had Carlos tied and gagged between them. His shirt had been ripped open and he was bruised and bleeding. Ianto felt a numbness creep up from his feet and the buzzing in his head increased. He tried to stand, but was unable to get his limbs to respond to his desires.

"But you need to learn a lesson. Failure is not an option. You screw up; something you care about gets taken away." As the interrogator walked over to Carlos, the numbness crept further up John. When he pulled the knife and sliced across the boy's throat, Ianto felt the buzzing and the numbness overwhelm him. His last conscious thought was that he wished they had killed him instead.


	7. Triage

**Triage (Part 7 of the Treachery Continuation)**  
**RATING: **PG-13  
**SUMMARY: ****Ianto(John)'s future with UNIT is debated; Tosh discovers some disturbing information about Ianto.**

* * *

He woke up alone in bed. Looking around, he realized that he was in a hospital room. A set of electrodes were attached to his chest and another lead was threaded to a small band around his finger. He looked at the monitor and saw that his heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation were being measured. "_Where the hell am I? How did I get...?"_

The door opened. A man dressed in a white lab coat entered and looked at the monitor. "You are doing much better Mr. Thomas. You gave us quite a scare."

John was confused. He thought he remembered, but no he couldn't remember. Was he in Moscow, no that couldn't be right? "Where am I, what's going on?"

The man, a physician John assumed, smiled and went to adjust his IV. "I'm noticing a slight elevation of your white count, just going to add an antibiotic to your drip; don't want you getting in infection."

The 'doctor' pulled up a chair and began to speak softly to John. John felt himself relaxing at the sound of the man's voice. "You are in the UNIT hospital in London. You were unable to complete your mission successfully but you got away and were brought to safety."

John tried to focus, but it was so hard, and he was so tired. "But, the boy…" he started to say but couldn't think of the rest of the sentence.

"The boy is safe; he's safe because you always do a good job. You were frightened when the mission failed and dreamt that something bad was going to happen to him. Nothing bad happened, the boy is safe." The voice droned on and on as John felt himself sinking into oblivion. _"Thank goodness, it was only a dream."_

"What the hell were you thinking?" John's handler spat at the Colonel as they watched John and the doctor through a camera discretely placed in a light fixture.

"He has to know the price of failure."

"Don't be ridiculous, you almost made him short circuit. He's a prototype; while we've removed most of his empathic architecture he's still fully human and is quite capable of feeling emotions."

"Pity, I thought we were closer to creating a Cyberman than we appear to be."

The trainer gritted his teeth. These officers were such idiots. It took so much time and effort to create John, a man totally controlled by their inputs, yet who believed he was perfectly free to act. They'd had numerous failures before John. The first attempt had resulted in an agent who could follow orders but couldn't react to changing inputs. No ability to improvise lead to his death on his second minor mission, a simple robbery gone wrong. The next two agents had too much ability to improvise. Both had gone rogue. One had killed several UNIT employees before being killed herself; the second had committed suicide after a mission failure.

The next batch of conversions did better, but still had problems. One had tried to run away in horror after his first successful assassination, another had gone completely mad after half a dozen missions, and the last one before John was still operational, but increasingly brutal toward his comfort companion. They were trying to tone down his pent up aggression, but if they were unsuccessful, they would have to destroy him as well.

And now John Thomas. It looked like he was going to be a failure as well. Everything had been going fine, even this failure shouldn't have been a big setback if it had been handled right. But no, the UNIT brass always thought they knew best. Rough him up a bit, frighten him a bit, what a colossal mistake that was.

They had worked for weeks trying to get John to forget the murder of his comfort companion, if they couldn't stamp that memory out, he'd be useless.

"Why don't you just give the whole Cyberman wish a rest. Let's just see if we can't get this one back to a functioning level. We created a brilliant assassin, let's just work with what we have."

"Of course," the Colonel said deferentially. Inside he smirked at the handler's lack of perspective. "_Creating a perfect assassin is marvelous, but if you think UNIT is dumping hundreds of millions of Euros into this project to create mere assassins, you are sadly mistaken."_

"I'll leave you to your rehabilitation work, then" the Colonel said getting up from the observation room_. "We have one final mission for Mr. Thomas; just get him well enough for that and he'll have served his purpose."_

Tosh stared at the computer in dismay. She hadn't hacked into Jack's records but decided to take a different tact. While she knew that the reports about Ianto's progress as a tour guide might be a decoy, she was surprised that other than Jack's records, there were no records planted on-line to support the deception. She was sure that if Ianto was living in Edinburgh working in any trade she would have found a trace of him. She looked at endless records for people meeting Ianto's general description and came up empty. She had looked at every person listed as a tour guide, travel agent or related profession and found nothing. She had even had face recognition software scan every CCTV feed in Scotlandover the prior three years. Nothing. It was if Ianto Jones had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

As she sat there she pulled up the picture she had taken of Ianto leading a group of tourists around Edinburgh. She enlarged his face and looked at the area around his body. It was certainly him, and if it had been altered someone very, very good had done the work. She looked at random sections, enlarging them to see if even one pixel had been altered. It looked like the picture was genuine.

Just as she was about to close down her computer something caught her eye. There was a spec of red in the corner of the background that she had enlarged. It was probably nothing, but it would only take a minute to check. She yawned and stretched and refocused her attention. She reduced the enlargement a bit and began to refocus. There was definitely a tiny red object at the side of one of the buildings in the background. She worked at enlarging that area, refocusing until the image became clear.

She gasped. It was a man in a uniform with a red cap on his head. No, it couldn't be. She worked the image some more until she could see the insignia. UNIT. It was a UNIT soldier with a weapon trained on Ianto and the tourists. Something was terribly wrong.

What the hell was going on? What was UNIT doing there? She looked at the picture one more time and saved the image. She got back online and looked for archived CCTV feed around UNIT headquarters in London. Again she used the face recognition software to see if any glimpse of Ianto could be found over the last three years. It would take several hours for the program to complete its search so Tosh went to bed, tossed and turned for a while and then got up again.

She was surprised that the face recognition program indicated that it already had several hits from the London CCTV archives. It was still running, but she didn't want to wait until it had finished its search. She took a deep breath, opened the files and looked at the images before her.


	8. The Plot Thickens

**SUMMARY: ****Ianto(John)'s continues receiving treatment at UNIT; Tosh moves closer to finding out the truth about Ianto. This Chapter is rated PG-13**

**A/N: Thanks for all the lovely comments!**

* * *

Two months had passed since the disastrous mission in Oman. John Thomas healed physically but emotionally he remained fragile and confused. Nightmares of Carlos' murder continued to haunt him and if he was lucky he might get three or four hours of sleep on any given night.

He was still in the hospital receiving 'psychiatric' treatment. In reality, the UNIT scientists were working frantically to reinforce the reality that Carlos was alive.

"John, you know that your dreams are just your subconscious expressing your worst fears?"

"I do," John replied, "but the first dream seemed so real, it's hard for me to believe that Carlos is still alive."

"What would it take to convince you of his existence?"

"Well, seeing him of course. Everyone telling me he's alive does nothing to ease my anxiety. If I could just see him, spend some time with him, I would fell much better."

"We've discussed before why that's not possible…"

"I know, but I don't think I'll be emotionally overwhelmed if I see him. But without that, I'll never be convinced, really convinced that he's alive."

The 'psychiatrist' nodded. They had been having daily sessions for two weeks and this was as far as they had progressed. The impression of Carlos' murder has been fixed on John's brain, and all the suggestions under sedation and images of a happy Carlos implanted directly into his brain couldn't dislodge the memory of his murder.

John knew that the doctors were disappointed in him and puzzled a bit why that didn't make him feel as uneasy as he usually did. By now he fully expected his head to be buzzing loudly but there was just a faint discomfort at the end of the session. He returned to his room and felt very sleepy. The new medication was helping him to get more sleep, but it wasn't restful slumber, now he had vague dreams of strange people and monsters. He hadn't told his doctors about these new dreams, he was certain they would have him committed if he told them he was having dreams about a chocolate eating pteranodon or a monster that looked like something out of a Planet of the Apes movie.

The researchers met again with the Colonel overseeing the project. Bringing him up to date, they weren't surprised to hear his conclusion.

"I think we are going to have to give him Carlos in order to convince him that he's not dead."

The lead scientist sighed. "You understand how risky that is. He could go completely rogue on us, or completely decompose."

"I don't think we have a choice. Unless we can displace or at least dampen the memories of Carlos dying, he won't be able to focus and process information for another mission." Seeing a look concern pass between two of the other researchers, the Colonel asked, "Is there a supply problem?"

"No, it's just that each comfort companion is designed specifically for one individual. We have one more Carlos but he is tuned a bit differently. Less agreeable, a bit sharper edged, more aggressive."

"Can you alter John's perception of Carlos so that he won't detect a change?"

"I don't think we can take a chance. His head's so messed up already, I think that would be ill advised. We can work with the other Carlos to modify his behavior a bit, but that takes time. We've spent months fine tuning him for his chosen agent and it will take just as long to retrain him."

The Colonel got up to leave the room. "You've got one week, gentlemen. I suggest you get busy."

Tosh opened the program to see the CCTV feed it had identified as Ianto. The first pictures were almost three years old and a man who looked like Ianto was walking down the street. The feed wasn't particularly clear, so it was hard to tell if the match was good or not. There were more pictures, but as time progressed the person matched looked less and less like Ianto. Again the clarity of the pictures wasn't great.

While she had been looking at the first pictures, the computer program had completed its sweep of the available footage. It had identified two more images. She brought up the first one. It was a clear shot of a man from the front. But it didn't look much like Ianto. His smile was a lot like Ianto's, but the nose was straighter, the chin a little less square, the forehead smaller and the eyes, they were blue, but cold and lifeless. Still there was something vaguely familiar about him… _"No! It can't be."_

She was about to look for that image Liz had pointed out to her earlier in the day when she remembered that the program had identified one additional image. She decided to look at that first. A feeling of pure dread ran through her as the image was revealed. The image wasn't from a CCTV camera in London, but was stored in her own cache. Not the picture of Ianto that she had stolen long ago, but the very image from earlier today. Her cache had stored the image of the suspected assassin in Oman. It still didn't look like Ianto to her. Could the program be wrong?

She sat back and thought for a while until she determined how to proceed. She'd need to 'borrow' some software from the Hub, but that would be easy. Just sneak the program out from the archives, bring it home, download it on her laptop and put it back the following day. No one would ever know it was missing. It wasn't alien, just advanced software developed by UNIT to identify soldiers who died in battle and who were otherwise unrecognizable. Tosh smiled as she appreciated the irony of using UNIT's own tools against them.

She quickly sobered as she contemplated what this meant for Ianto and what it could mean for her. And what did this say about Jack? How could she continue to work for a man who had apparently turned Ianto over to UNIT?

She shuddered. What did mean in terms of Owen's involvement? She had thought to enlist Owen's help but how could she take the chance. Was he involved in this? She and Owen were dating now; they had even spoken of making some long term plans. The thought of Owen helping Jack was almost unbearable.

She considered asking Gwen for help, but as well meaning as she was, Gwen would certainly tell Rhys, who might tell Andy, who might needle Jack about it. She might even storm into Jack's office and demand an explanation. Tosh snorted. Now that would be a sight, but it wouldn't do much to help her figure out what was going on.

Maybe Liz… no, even she could be involved. _"Shit,"_ Tosh thought, _"she could even be a UNIT agent."_ She realized that she had no idea where exactly Liz had come from. There had been mention of M15, but that could easily be faked.

No, she'd have to do this on her own. She shut off her computer and realized it was almost time to get ready from work. Tosh didn't know what was going on, or who was involved, but by god she was going to find out. And she didn't care who got hurt in the process. If Jack was involved then to hell with him. And if Owen was, well best to deal with that if she had to. Tosh was certain of only two things. She was not going back to a UNIT prison and if that image from Oman was Ianto, someone was going to pay.


	9. Learning Curve

**TITLE: ****Learning Curve **  
**RATING: **PG-13  
**SUMMARY: ****Ianto (John)'s recovery plateaus; Tosh digs a bit deeper into UNITS files**

* * *

It took Tosh several weeks to 'borrow' the face transformation software from the Hub. It seemed as though every time she went to remove it from the archives someone would interrupt her. The first time Jack came down asking if she needed help since Liz was out sick. The next two times, Liz appeared and scolded her for trying to locate things on her own.

"Oi, you mess up my filing, and you'll be in big trouble. What are you looking for anyway?"

Tosh's brain raced to form some type of reasonable answer. "Uh, I was looking for that voice translation software that UNIT found some time ago."

"I thought it didn't work?"

"Well it didn't but I was thinking that we've encountered about a dozen new species since we last tried it, maybe it might work with some of our newer recordings."

"Yeah, well you are in the wrong section of the archives. Voice related software is in Section 16; this is the image and video software section."

"I'm so sorry," Tosh replied, "I was sure I was looking in the right place and you've been so busy…"

Liz rolled her eyes. "Busy or not, this is why you are supposed to submit your requests to me. Can't have everyone wandering around, taking things out without recording their removal, that's how things get lost or misfiled. Come on; let's get you your program."

Tosh took the software and headed back to her work station. Liz watched her carefully. _"That's so unlike Tosh. That woman has a memory like a steel trap. Wonder if she's working too hard, or maybe working Owen too hard."_ She smirked at the thought.

It was so obvious that something was going on between those two. But they acted so innocent at work, like they were embarrassed for anyone to know. _"Yeah, shagging Owen can be pretty exhausting, I ought to know. After the Captain lost interest, he was a nice diversion for a while. Hope she doesn't get her little geeky heart broken."_

It wasn't that Liz disliked Tosh; she thought Tosh was nice enough, but perhaps a bit too naive and trusting for someone of her intelligence and experience.

While Tosh waited for her chance to steal the UNIT software, she spent her evenings at home hacking into UNIT's computer systems. Their security was pathetic in Tosh's estimation. Oh it was better than the stuff the banks and defense industry used, _"but really,"_ Tosh thought, _"I shouldn't be able to hack my way in in less than six hours." _

She moved carefully through the labyrinth of data bases and project reports looking unsuccessfully for anything pertaining to Ianto. She dug through personnel records, detention records, even orders of execution and found no trace.

Days passed and Tosh became increasingly frustrated in failing to find anything remotely connected to Ianto, the Oman assassination, anything at all unusual. Owen noticed her increasing distraction and teased her about it.

"So, I thought may you, me and Lizzy could have a three-way. How about it?"

"Yeah, OK, if that's what you want," Tosh answered absentmindedly.

Owen couldn't help it. He burst out laughing.

"What, what did I say?" When Owen repeated his initial suggestion to her, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Sorry, sorry, I'm just a bit preoccupied."

"What? You've got yourself a new boyfriend or something?"

Tosh smiled. She had to focus when she was with Owen. She didn't know if he was involved in Ianto's disappearance or if so, how deeply he was involved, but best not to take any chances.

"You probably don't realize that my parole with UNIT is up in less than two months. I've been thinking how my life will change once I'm not under threat of being incarcerated by them."

Owen looked a bit worried. "And what does that mean?" Silently he prayed, _"Please don't her leave Torchwood, not when we're finally getting something going."_

Tosh laughed. Owen realized that it was the first time he had heard her laugh in weeks. "That's just it. I can't figure out a single thing I'd change or do differently. Five years of walking on egg shells, and I finally realized that I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, with the best team I could imagine and I've even found a half-way decent guy to date."

"Oi, you are seeing someone else," Owen replied pretending to be put-out. " 'Cause if you're talking about me, I know you'd be saying you'd found the most wonderful bloke on Earth to date."

"You got me. Let's go back to your place and you can show me how wonderful you really are."

Finally, Tosh had her chance. Liz was out getting lunch and picking up some of Jack's dry cleaning and the others got called out on a simple inanimate object retrieval. But as the object was showing up as the size of a large sofa, Jack asked both Gwen and Owen to join him.

"Don't let Liz eat all the lunch," Jack shouted at her as they ran to the SUV.

"Do you need me to track you?"

"We're good Tosh; just keep your earpiece on in case this turns out to be more complicated than we thought."

Tosh nodded and pretended to be engrossed in a computer program. Once she tracked the SUV as being a mile away from the Hub, she quickly went down to the archives, found the UNIT computer software, put a dummy program in its place, ran back up to her work station and hid the disc in her purse.

Liz returned a few minutes later, looked over and saw Tosh staring at her computer screen and proceeded to take lunch up to the conference room. Tosh finished erasing and replacing the CCTV images from her trip to the archives and then joined Liz a few minutes later. They chatted about trivial things, the weather, that new monster movie coming out next week that everyone was excited about (everyone but Tosh apparently), the latest alien encounters.

"So did that software help you with the new alien languages this time around?"

Tosh smiled. "Not yet, but I feel like I'm getting closer every day.

John continued his therapy for another week until he was told that it was time for him to return home and rest.

"You'll still have therapy twice a week, but we've concluded that being in your own residence will be beneficial to your recovery. Take the next four days to rest up, we'll see you back here next Monday."

John nodded his eyes tearing up.

The 'psychiatrist' patted John on the shoulder. "You're doing fine. Don't be so hard on yourself. Everyone has missions go bad on them, but you can return to active duty just as soon as you we get you back to full function."

"UNIT has done do much for me, I wouldn't be anything without them, I just worry that I'm disappointing everyone." John saw the look of concern in his doctor's eyes. "I know, I need to relax and let the feeling of failure go. I'm trying," John said sadly.

"We'll see you next week then."

John took a taxi back to his flat. He was surprised that the place was so clean. He was even more surprised to find his refrigerator filled with groceries, and his mail neatly piled on his kitchen table. Then he saw the note. It was from the Brigadier explaining that they didn't want him to have the additional stress of shopping or cleaning when he returned home.

John smiled. _"He's so good to me, just like a father. I'd never have gotten this job if it weren't for him. I've got to get well. I've just got to get well."_

He heard a noise from his bedroom. He went to draw his weapon and realized he didn't have one on him. Of course not, he realized, UNIT wasn't going to allow him to be armed while he was on medical leave.

He crept to the bedroom and opened the door. He blinked in confusion.

"What took you so long." It was Carlos. Naked. Lying on his bed, stroking himself lazily.


	10. What Tosh Saw

******What Tosh Saw**

******SUMMARY: ****Tosh's search through UNITs database yields some startling results. ****RATING: **PG-13  
**WARNING: Reference to medical experiements on humans, selective (eugenic) murder of humans.****  
**

* * *

For several nights following her theft of the software, Tosh was unable to find time to work with it. The first day had seen a pack of weevils invading a park near Newport. The whole team went out on retrieval and while they were eventually successful, Tosh got swiped by one and had a long gash on her arm. Owen carefully stitched up her wound and then insisted on her coming home with him. She tried to avoid agreeing, but after stating that she was fine and that she didn't want to be any bother, Jack had ordered her to either go home with Owen or to go to her own home where Jack would look after her.

Tosh shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Jack being in her house with Ianto's pictures and the software disc sitting on her dining room table.

"What is it, what's wrong," Jack asked with concern.

"You're right Jack; I'm really not feeling too well. Can Owen take me home now?"

Jack nodded, relieved that she had finally given in.

On the drive back to Owen's she really didn't feel well. That had been way too close; she had to make sure that her 'research' was well hidden, even in her own flat.

"Do we need to stop by your place and get you some clothes?"

Tosh startled. "No! I mean I already have half my wardrobe at your flat, there's no reason to stop by. And I really don't want to get into a conversation with my nosy neighbor down the hall."

Owen snorted. "Yeah, Mrs. Tripp, she really is one, isn't she?"

Tosh smiled. "I swear she stands by her door and listens to everyone's comings and goings. Do you know that after you left my flat last Saturday afternoon, she came by not ten minutes later? Asking me if I had out-of-town company, of all things."

"What did you tell her?" Owen wondered how Tosh maneuvered out of a confrontation.

"No." Seeing the look of puzzlement on Owen's face, Tosh smiled. "I told her 'no' and shut the door on her. Between her and Liz, I'm surrounded by snoops."

Shit, could it be that her neighbor was some type of spy? She felt sweat break out on her forehead. _"Tosh stop being an idiot," _she told herself, "_there are nosy people everywhere. That's all it is."_

Owen noticed her sweating and drove as quickly as he dared to his flat. He got her upstairs and into a track suit she kept there. He took her temperature and sighed.

"You're running a bit of a fever, let's give you something for that and get you into bed."

Tosh fell asleep almost immediately after her head hit the pillow and slept long but restlessly. When she woke some time later, Owen wasn't in bed with her, but from the impression on the mattress next to her, he had slept by her side. She smiled at how nice he had become to her since Ianto left, as if he sensed how much his loss had affected her. Ianto had been her best friend after all.

She really didn't have much in common with Gwen, now married and talking about her and Rhys starting a family. Liz, well Liz was just a bit peculiar, bookish on the one hand, reading mostly history and biographies by the boatload, but almost unnaturally interested in living life fast and hard. Tosh often thought of her as a female version of "old" Owen, shagging anything that moved, including Jack and Owen.

She opened her eyes to see Owen carrying a tray with some tea and toast on it. "Oi Sleeping Beauty, its nine o'clock."

"At night?"

He helped her sit up and put down the tray over her lap. "No, Thursday morning, you've been asleep since 4 PM yesterday. How are you feeling?"

"Better, but oddly, I still feel tired."

"Not surprised, you had some rather strange dreams."

"_Crap," _she thought, taking a sip of tea. "I did?"

"Yeah, weevils chasing you and I think you had one that Ianto was in. I could swear I heard you mutter 'killer.'

Tosh inhaled and began to choke on her tea. Owen quickly helped her with the cup and wiped her face.

"I have been thinking about him lately," she confessed. Seeing the look of concern on Owen's face, she continued, "I remember when he first joined I thought to myself, that when I finished my parole, I was going to drag that shy boy out and party with him for about a week."

She hesitated for just a moment. "I sometimes wonder how he's doing, don't you?"

Owen was caught a bit off guard. "Well…uh sure, but I'm certain he's fine." Tosh smiled and picked up her tea. If there was one thing she could tell about Owen it was when he was lying. And if he'd been hooked up to a lie detector she reckoned its needle would be off the scale.

"You know, we should have a little celebration when my parole is up."

"That's a good idea, I'm sure the Captain would be…"

"I didn't mean the team, I meant you and me," Tosh said cutting Owen off. "And really a party with the team? I'm hoping that Liz and Gwen don't know anything about my imprisonment with UNIT."

"Sorry, you're right, don't know what I was thinking. Can you just imagine what Gwen's reaction would be if she knew she was working with a renowned industrial spy?"

Tosh rolled her eyes. "And Liz, she'd probably bake a cake for the occasion. With a metal file in it."

For the first time in several weeks they both laughed out loud.

Tosh stayed at Owen's flat until Saturday. She fretted about how she was going to keep him out of her flat, but luck was on her side. Just as he was pulling into a parking space near her flat, Owen's cell rang. It was Jack and there was an emergency at the airport. Some type of giant crawling reptile had shown up in the terminal and the whole place was in an uproar. Reports of a twenty-five foot komodo dragon were being tweeted everywhere.

"I'm just pulling up to Tosh's place...yeah, got you; I'll be there as quick as I can."

Tosh quickly unbuckled her seat belt, gave Owen a small kiss, opened the car door and got out. "Owen, that sounds serious, you go ahead, I can open my door on my own." Seeing his hesitation, she added, "Look, I'll call you in ten minutes so you know I'm Ok." She didn't wait for an answer, just closed the car door, waved him goodbye and headed to her front door. She entered her building, collected her mail and went up to her apartment. By the time she opened her door, her hands were shaking. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her laptop and all her research documents still safely on her table. She needed to find a suitable place for them, but first, she had to call Owen. Owen was just arriving at the airport so Tosh wished him luck adding that he shouldn't stop by because she was going to sleep the weekend away.

He understood but made her promise that she would call him if she started to feel poorly or she needed anything. As she ended the call, Tosh smiled and booted up her laptop.

The software quickly confirmed her fears. She put an old picture of Ianto side by side with the image of the assassin in Oman. The computer morphed one into the other and predicted that they were the same person with a 70% certainty. Not as good as she hoped, but the connection couldn't be discounted.

She took another look through the UNIT computer system especially the research files. Something had seemed a little bit strange the last time she browsed through them, but she wasn't certain what was off. She located some files that dealt with a project to alter the appearance of UNIT's agents. It was mostly small stuff, wigs, facial hair implants, colored contacts, nothing she wouldn't have expected to find. Two hours later, she still hadn't located anything remotely of interest and she thought if she looked at one more report on the progress of a wig that could change colors via an implant in its lining she thought she'd scream.

As she carefully retraced her steps back out of the files she knocked a can of Coke over. She grabbed her keyboard to prevent it getting wet. As she sponged up the spill she hoped she hadn't accidentally hit any keys that would leave a trail. When she sat back down at her laptop she was stunned to see a new screen had opened.

**SECURITY LEVEL RED – EYES ONLY **

Somehow she must have inadvertently typed the sequence of keys needed to open this concealed menu. Running a diagnostic, she determined that access had been achieved by holding the Alt and Ctrl keys and typing the word 'UNIT.'

If Tosh was less than impressed at the security for this section, the files it contained shook her to the core.

She opened the folder labeled "Cloning Experiments." It wasn't cloning of embryos or stem cell research, as she had expected. UNIT was attempting to clone a human adult. There was no way that UNIT could accomplish that with the current technology available on planet Earth. Sure enough, as she read further, they were using a 26th Century replicator that had come through the rift to produce copies of living adults.

The research read like something out of a horror movie. Their first experiments resulted in half formed humans with defects so severe that they didn't survive once they were removed from the cloning tanks. As time went on they perfected their techniques to where they could produce a limited number of physical clones. She estimated that for every stable clone, they had about a thirty that they judged unsuitable. They came out of the cloning vats with serious though survivable defects or their new memories wouldn't implant properly; occasionally the clone became sick and the implanted memories rapidly degraded. All of these clones were destroyed.

"_They are creating humans, and executing them if they don't meet their specifications," _Tosh thought in horror. She felt a little nauseous. It was close to midnight and she realized that she hadn't eaten, her injured arm was throbbing and she really needed to get some rest. She'd have to come back and look at the files again, and somehow download them without being detected.

There were two more sub-folders she wanted to take a quick look at before she shut down her computer. They weren't labeled so she had no idea what she was going to find.

She gasped as the first page loaded.

**Cyberman Conversion Experiments Using Stateless Prisoners**

She moved rapidly through the files, just skimming them to see how far UNIT had gotten. To her relief, it looked like they had tried to implant devices that controlled memories and dreams directly, while behavior was controlled through stimulus and reward. She could see where this was heading. If they could implant the same technology into the clones they would have a powerful, unshakably loyal fighting force willing to do anything they were instructed to do. The implications were horrifying.

She'd have to come back and copy these files as well if she could. As she opened last sub-folder a screen labeled "Assassin Project" popped up.

"_Shit,"_ Tosh thought. On the page were pictures of six men and two women. All had two names under their pictures and all except the last two were marked as 'terminated'. The second to last picture was of an older Caucasian man with silver hair. The legend underneath read,"Harry Peterson aka Stuart Baylor." The last picture was of a man that looked familiar and yet not so. The legend read "Ianto Jones aka John Thomas."

Tosh felt her gorge rise and ran for the bathroom. Afterwards she leaned on the sink as tears rolled down her face. This was impossible. Dangerous beyond belief, this was the work of people who had lost all sense of morality and humanity and worse yet, Ianto had fallen into their clutches.


	11. Do or Die

**TITLE: ****Do or Die ****RATING: **PG-13  
**WARNING: None****  
****SUMMARY: ****John begins to discover that everything isn't as it appears to be; Tosh ends her parole with UNIT and discusses her future with Owen.**

* * *

In hindsight, John knew he should have paid more attention to what had happened that night.

When he joined Carlos on the bed, Carlos was willing enough, but something seemed a bit off. He was just as talented with his mouth and hands and cock, but somehow more demanding maybe even a little cruel. His fingers left bruises, but John believed it was just that Carlos was over-excited after so long a separation.

The next night, Carlos demanded that John act as his comfort companion. John was shocked by this suggestion and told him to stop playing around.

"You're not supposed to do that Carlos, you are here for me, for my pleasure. That's your job."

"Well maybe I've decided to change my job description for tonight." Carlos said slapping John hard across his face. "Now get on that bed before I get angry," Carlos ordered as he pushed John backwards. "Go on; get in bed before I take a belt to you."

Something in John snapped. He was almost half a foot taller and much stronger than Carlos. He quickly moved toward Carlos and kicked his legs out from under him and pounced on him. John quickly pinned Carlos to the floor. Carlos struggled, spit on him and laughed.

John looked at the sneer on Carlos' face and fought for control. He wanted to beat him to a bloody mess, but he knew UNIT would be upset if he did that. Hoisting Carlos to his feet, John kept a tight grip around his throat.

"You will leave here and never come back. If you resist, I will kill you. If you return, I will do the same." John squeezed the young man's throat a little tighter to make sure he got the message. He opened his door and shoved Carlos out of his flat and into the hallway naked. John gathered up Carlos' clothes, opened the door and threw them at him.

"Go, don't return," he said before he slammed the door shut.

He lay on his bed trying to make sense of what happened. Could Carlos be sick? Or was he just bored with him? He fell asleep only to be woken hours later, by a light tapping on his door. He opened the door and found a tearful Carlos outside.

John sighed, but let Carlos come in. To his surprise, Carlos fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around John's legs. "I'm sorry, don't hurt me, I'm sorry, I'll do anything you want."

"Get up," John ordered.

Carlos stood, his eyes lowered in total submission.

Look at me," John ordered.

The terror in Carlos' eyes was almost as disconcerting as his earlier bravado had been.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, I think so, I don't know what happened. Take me to bed and fuck me."

John snorted. His libido, usually so ready and waiting, was completely subdued. "Not in the mood, actually."

John noticed that Carlos began to shake. "Come to bed John," he begged, "You have to come to bed."

John shook his head at the absurdity of the conversation. Carlos walked up to John and put his arms around him. "Please come to bed." And then in a whisper that John could barely hear, "I'm a dead man if you don't"

John pulled back shocked. Carlos silently moved over to where a large plant stood at the side of the entryway. He pointed at some soil near the rim and held a finger up to his mouth. John walked over and looked. He motioned Carlos back to the center of the room.

"Bugged?" he mouthed.

Carlos nodded.

John pointed to the bedroom.

Carlos nodded again.

John felt a little dizzy. What the hell was going on? He decided first things first.

"Ok, let's just forget about earlier. I think you were just a little too excited, am I right?"

"Yes."

"Why don't we go to sleep and we'll talk about it in the morning." Carlos' eyes got wide with fear. John knew what he was thinking. "_No we aren't going to talk about it here."_

"I've been thinking, while you are my companion, I don't treat you very well do I? I reckon that's why you are so moody. I'll take you to breakfast tomorrow and then we can take a nice walk in the park. Would you like that?"

Carlos smiled. "Yes, yes I would."

"And then I'll bring you home and fuck you into oblivion, ok?" John told him as he shook his head 'no.'

"Yes, yes I would."

Tosh returned to work a few days later. She had used every trick she knew, but she couldn't discover how Ianto had gotten from the Hub to UNIT. She tried to remember back to that night. Jack had ordered Gwen and her home. They had been sent a day or two later to pack up Ianto's flat. She remembered that clearly. How sad and empty the flat had been. Almost no furniture, and boxes of Lisa's clothes and personal items as if he expected that she would be cured and coming home.

She could remember a conversation with Owen at the flat about Jack's anger and a warning not to go meddling. Had he seemed particularly nervous when they spoke, or was she just creating that to fit what she had found?

Did Jack retcon Ianto, set him up in Edinburgh only to have UNIT abduct him later? Or had Jack lied to Owen and sent Ianto to UNIT? Could Owen have known about Ianto being sent to UNIT from the start? _"No that's unthinkable."_

Tosh walked through the next few weeks like a zombie. Owen would tease her good naturedly about her behavior. "Oi, Earth to Tosh, where is that magnificent brain off to today?"

Tosh startled. "I've been thinking, do you think I could leave the country and go to Japan to visit my mother once my parole is over?"

Owen smiled. No wonder Tosh had been so preoccupied. She hadn't seen her mother in over five years. Jack let her sneak a quick phone call in from an untraceable line in side the Hub every couple of months, but that was extent of her contact with her family.

"We could ask Jack..."

"No, not yet, please." Owen looked puzzled. "Maybe he'll say no, and I'm not ready to hear that. Let me get a few weeks of being a free women behind me and then I'll ask."

They spoke a bit about their dinner date for that Saturday. With Jack's blessings, they had Saturday and Sunday off, to celebrate the occasion. Both Liz and Gwen were a bit put out initially, but Jack deflected them with a coy statement about Tosh and Owen taking their relationship to the next level.

"I'm going to be so jealous if Tosh gets a ring before I do," Gwen told Liz when she visited the archives the next day.

"You think you have problems? Hell I can't even get a date, let alone a live in boyfriend."

Gwen smiled sympathetically. _"That's because you are a very strange woman. One minute you're talking about nuclear physics, the next minute you're off describing the latest Paris fashions."_

"So how big do you reckon the diamond will be?" Liz wondered.

"I'm betting pretty big; it's not like Owen spends any money on his wardrobe," Gwen snarked.

The two women gossiped a bit more about the possible upcoming engagement. Gwen was always surprised that despite the fact that she and Liz had very little in common that they understood each other so well.

The weekend came and Owen picked up Tosh at her flat. He had picked a very fancy restaurant for dinner, so posh in fact, that it made Tosh a bit uneasy. Owen was charming and witty and sweet like he always was when they were out on an official date.

"Here's to your new found freedom," Owen toasted. "So now that you're a free woman, what do you think about moving in with me?"

Tosh almost spit out her wine. She was not expecting this offer at all. "You mean like live with you?"

"Oi, don't tell me your one of those old fashioned girls, who doesn't believe in shacking up before marriage. Well, we can do that too if you want."

"Owen, please stop being so romantic, you're overwhelming me," Tosh teased.

"Is that a yes, a no, a maybe?"

"It's a 'let me think about it for a few days.' Your suggestion is very unexpected." Seeing the dejected look on his face she added, "You come back to my place for the night and show me all the advantages of living together, ok?"

Owen smiled with relief. Tosh wasn't angry or saying no, and he hadn't really thought about how she would feel about him springing this on her. And she'd invited him back to her place. She didn't do that very often. It was almost like her flat was a private sanctuary.

She almost never let him stay over, especially for the last few months, but the few times he did, was when Tosh had something special in mind. He chuckled to himself as he remembered the last time he stayed over. Costumes! Who would have thought that Tosh liked to role play. It was an unexpected kink that Owen, despite his initial misgivings, found himself enjoying more with each experience.

"Earth to Owen. What are you thinking about," Tosh teased. Owen was caught off guard and couldn't come up with an answer.

"Well you just come home with me, I'll have you talking nonsense before you know it."

They quickly finished dinner and drove back to her flat. Tosh settled Owen on the couch and excused herself to get changed. Owen sat nervously as he imagined what tonight's game might be.

Tosh finally came back in the room dressed in a loose red silk dressing gown. She walked over to her laptop and turned it on, clicking her mouse until she had found the page she wanted.

"Did you get a new game with interactive software?" Owen asked grinning.

"Not really," Tosh replied. "Come over here, there's something I'd like to show you."

Owen got up and walked over to her desk and looked at the screen. There was a picture of Ianto on one side, and a picture of a stranger on the other side. A line of text at the bottom read "match with 70% certainty."

As Owen started to turn and ask Tosh what this was about, he heard a familiar click and felt cold hard steel against his temple. "I want to know everything you know about where Ianto is Owen, and I suggest you don't make me ask you twice."

Owen nodded and swallowed hard. Tosh was holding a loaded handgun against his head. And he knew Tosh well enough that to know that she wasn't bluffing. It was time to do or die.


	12. Truth Be Told

******SUMMARY: ****Tosh hears Owen's story, Owen hears Ianto's story; John learns more and understands less about himself, Carlos is himself.**

**RATING: **PG-13

**Thank you to everyone for all the nice reviews! **

* * *

"Tosh put the gun down before someone gets hurt," Owen said as calmly as he could.

"Too late. For Ianto anyway."

Owen sighed. "Alright, what exactly do you want to know?"

"Everything. Did you know that Ianto was sent to UNIT, did you know what happened to him once he got there, what was your role in all of this?"

"Yes, no, well sort of, what do you want me to say?" Owen asked.

Tosh make almost a growl as she pushed the gun against Owen's temple. "I'm not kidding Owen, you tell me everything you know or I will shoot you."

"I know the Captain sent Ianto to Unit." He hesitated to tell her the rest, but if he didn't and she found out later… "I signed the papers confirming that he was in good health when he left with UNIT."

"And what did you think would happen to him?"

"Thought he'd be kept in one of their prisons, maybe retrained to work some desk job for them."

Tosh couldn't believe what she was hearing. Owen knew she had been in a UNIT prison; she had shared the horror with him as they grew closer.

Owen continued to explain how Ianto had laughed and taunted Jack into a frightening rage. "And before you say anything, I did argue against him being sent there. I tried to convince Jack that Ianto was probably experiencing post-traumatic stress or something similar but he was having none of it."

To Tosh's surprise, Owen began to cry quietly. "He threatened me Tosh, said I would follow Ianto to UNIT if I told anyone, including you and Gwen. And I was frightened; I've never seen Jack like that before or since. So I followed his orders and signed the papers, but I know nothing, nothing at all as to what's happened to Ianto since that day."

"And you never looked to see if you'd find any records about Ianto on the mainframe."

Owen snorted, "I tried once, but I couldn't even get past the first layer of security on Jack's computer."

Owen winced at Tosh's bitter laugh. "Took me weeks, but I got through, eventually."

She motioned him over to the couch. Owen moved quickly and sat staring at Tosh. "If you're not going to shoot me, would you please put the gun down, it's making me nervous," he said as he wiped his sleeve across his face.

Tosh hesitated, then lowered the gun and reengaged the safety. She did, however, keep the gun in her lap. It took several hours for Tosh to explain everything she had discovered about Ianto. The bogus files on Jack's computer, UNIT's presence in a picture she took from Jack's computer, Liz's offhand comment about the surveillance photo, and her subsequent hacking of UNIT's files and their contents.

It was Owen's turn to be horrified. He shook his head in disbelief. "Oi, I can see them retraining Ianto, maybe brainwashing him, but cybernetic implants, they know how dangerous they are."

Tosh showed him the Assassin Program folder. Owen read through the information but was disappointed that there weren't more details. "Looks like it isn't working all that well, that's a relief."

There was one last thing she hadn't yet told him because she knew how he'd react. Owen was livid.

"Human cloning! That's expressly forbidden by international treaty. Are you sure?"

When he saw the files on the cloning project, he turned so white Tosh thought he might faint. "They're barbarians, the lot of them." Owen looked up at Tosh, "we're going to get those UNIT bastards, I swear if it's the last thing I do, that cloning program is going to be destroyed. I don't care what it takes. "

"And if Jack knows about this?"

"He can't, how could he?" Owen stopped and thought about that for a moment. "I don't think he does, but if I'm wrong, we are going to have to find a way to kill Jack Harkness…permanently."

John had a restless night and woke up early enough to see the sun rise. Carlos woke up not long after that. They got dressed mostly in silence, though they attempted a little conversation for the sake of those listening. After deciding where they wanted to go for breakfast, they headed out to walk to a little restaurant not far from John's flat. As they walked, Carlos took out a small notepad and began to write.

"_Don't say anything at breakfast. Could be bugged."_

John's eyes widened but he nodded. The breakfast was uneventful, the conversation still stilted. "So what do you do when you are not with me?"

Carlos smiled, gave his eyes a quick roll. "Oh, I read a lot, watch TV, have a drink at the local, play a bit of pool. It's not a bad life for a kid from Rio."

"Yeah, I do the same a lot. Don't have many friends, you know."

Carlos nodded and the conversation petered out as they concentrated on their breakfasts. The grabbed a taxi and headed off to Kew Gardens, far from John's flat. He reckoned the further away they were from his normal haunts; the less likely UNIT would be monitoring them.

They rode for about a half an hour in complete silence. Arriving at their destination, John paid the man, and tipped him generously. "I can't believe you haven't been to Kew Gardens." John said to Carlos. "Just wait until you see all the different types of plants they have here."

As they walked away from the cab, the driver took out his cell phone. "Yeah, taking his boy-toy to Kew Gardens. No, nothing suspicious, kind of quiet during the ride, maybe awkward…well then it is there first official date," the driver snarked.

"Well what am I supposed to do about it? Yes, I know there are no transmission devices in the park, but I couldn't see how I could stop them from going there. I'll have someone waiting with a taxi when they exit the park."

After entering the park through the main gate, they walked through the Orangery and over to the Rose garden. After a suitable period they walked to the far end of the park until they reached a small pond near the Woodland Glade. The area was practically deserted. Carlos took out the small pad of paper. _"How do I know you're not bugged? They said you have implants, in your head, they control you by them."_

John shrugged. "I guess you'll have to take a chance, after all, if I were wired you would already be dead don't you think?"

"You've got a point."

"Now what's this about implants? I don't have any implants, I've got a metal plate from when I had my skull fracture," John's voice trailed off as he saw Carlos nod slowly. "_Maybe I'm transmitting something, how would I know?_ " John thought.

He realized for the first time that the incessant buzzing in his head was gone. And he wasn't getting any emotional highs either. He felt, well he felt 'normal' really. When John remarked on it, Carlos was not surprised.

"That's how they control you, if you do well you get a rush, right?" If you screw up what happens? The buzzing gets louder and you are in pain."

"But there was a big screw up, and it was more than just the noise in my head, they brought you to me and I saw you killed. Murdered, they cut your throat. It seemed so real, and now the UNIT doctors are telling me I imagined it. Did they plant that into my memories?"

Carlos almost started to speak and then took John by the hand and pulled him close. "No, they didn't, I'm pretty sure that really happened." Seeing John's confusion Carlos tugged on his arm and they walked through the glade like any other couple enjoying the day.

"Look at me John. Let me ask you something. Do I seem any different to you?"

"Well yes, you've been acting strangely since last night."

"That wouldn't tell you anything since that would the first time you met me."

John looked at Carlos really looked at him for the first time. He looked exactly as he remembered, but he didn't act quite the same. John was highly proficient at assuming a role for a job; surely Carlos could be trained to do so as well. Was this some sort of joke, a trick, or something beyond his comprehension? He stared as Carlos began to unbutton his shirt.

"Carlos, stop that, it's not that warm and people will notice."

Carlos continued to unbutton the top half of his shirt. He pulled away the shirt from the left part of his chest. "What do you see John?"

"I see a daft young man who is going to get us kicked out of the park for indecency if he doesn't stop playing around." Carlos held his ground. "Look harder. What don't you see?"

Something in Carlos' tone made John stop and stare at his uncovered torso. "The tattoo, where is the tattoo?" John asked his voice rising a bit in fear.

"Your first Carlos had a sun tattoo, am I right?" Ianto nodded. "And at the beginning of last night, do you know if I had a tattoo? Ianto shook his head 'no.'

"I'm guessing the Carlos you saw early last night had moon tattoo 'cause they told me he was very aggressive with you?"

"What, what are you talking about?" John asked Carlos. John turned to confront him. "Who the hell are you?"

Just then Carlos spotted someone walking towards them. He didn't know if it was a UNIT operative or just someone out for a stroll. He pulled John in for a long, deep kiss. By the time the kiss ended the intruder had walked beyond them back toward the Garden entrance. "Who are you?" John asked again in a whisper.

"I'm Carlos, the real Carlos."


	13. Layer Upon Layer

******SUMMARY: More secrets are revealed. Owen finds a particularly shocking one about John/Ianto. ****RATING: **PG-13  
**WARNING: None****  
**

* * *

Carlos didn't know everything UNIT was up to, but he knew enough to provide John an overview of what was going on, at least in regards to the cloning program. By the end of the afternoon, John had more questions than answers.

"How do you know you're the 'real' Carlos? Couldn't that be a memory they implanted in you?" he asked they wandered around the lake and over to the Bamboo Garden.

Carlos had never considered that possibility. "Anything's possible, but all of us 'originals', as we're called, are housed in the same section of the prison. They troop us into their hospital for medical examinations and cell samples several times a week. None of us has a tattoo."

When John asked how many of them were being used for cloning, Carlos looked down. "There's only three of us now, a redheaded woman from London in her thirties, a man in his fifties from Kenya and me. I think there were about fifteen of us to start. But some cell lines wouldn't clone, some produced unusable clones, some of the clones got sick and died or rogue or something else."

"Where are the other 'originals?"

"I reckon they're dead. We're expendable, no one will miss us. I came off the streets of Rio. A child prostitute with no family. Got caught trying to nick a customer's wallet. Unfortunately, that customer was a UNIT Brigadier."

"Are you all used as comfort companions?"

"I think that was the original plan, but they realized early on that while you could turn a middle-aged white collar criminal into a good comfort companion that some clones would be more useful as informants or the like. Honestly, I don't think there are any Carloses out there working on stealing state secrets. They would have to teach my clones everything about computers and files and passwords and all that kind of stuff, because I know nothing about it."

John smiled; He silently agreed that Carlos' potential as an industrial or government spy was pretty limited. Computer hacking was an art as much as a skill; you had to have some pretty sophisticated knowledge to defeat some of the newer security fire walls.

"I think the other two 'originals' have proved much more versatile. But I guess I still have value because they are going to be taking new cell samples from me next week. And its not like I have choice, is there?"

"And the assassins? How many of us are there?"

"I don't know," but I heard some of the guards talking about assassins going mad, something about old memories bleeding through."

John pondered this for a moment, then asked, "I have strange dreams about people I don't know, yet they seem familiar. Could that be what they were talking about?"

Carlos thought they could be until John told him about some of his more vivid dreams. "No way," Carlos snarked, "are your dreams real. Flying dinosaurs and a human killing robot and a man who can't die, you've been watching too much science fiction on the television, that's what I think."

John shrugged. It was a daft idea, but he was still glad he asked. As they headed back to the main gate, Carlos warned John to be careful. John nodded but wasn't convinced he needed to worry. "Will I see you again after tonight?"

"I don't know, but we'll have to put on a good show for them back at your flat if I'm going to live past tomorrow." And while John was uneasy about the whole idea, Carlos reassured him that he liked being with John and he wouldn't have to fake enjoying it.

Back at the flat, John and Carlos put on a hell of a show, maybe for UNIT, maybe for themselves. Ianto was not surprised when he woke the next morning to find that Carlos was already gone.

Two days later John returned to the UNIT hospital for continuing therapy. His doctor seemed pleased with his progress and suggested they try some biofeedback to suppress the few nightmares he was still experiencing. He had just settled into a comfortable recliner and had a pulse monitor put on his finger and an electrode attached to his head when he felt a sharp prick at his neck. He tried to sit up but couldn't. Then everything went black.

Tosh and Owen continued to dig through UNIT's files not finding much more of interest. There were plenty of files that normally would have caught their attention; bribes, thefts, and other general criminal activities under UNIT's direction as well as attempts to overthrow dictators and elected governments. But now they were interested in only one thing, how to locate Ianto and bring him safely home before UNIT killed him.

This time it was Owen who set them on the right track. Reading over the files from Ianto's last disastrous mission, Owen noticed that there were references to treatment for medical and psychological problems.

"Oi, Tosh," he shouted to her from her lounge, "did you every find any medical records for Ianto once he was altered?"

Tosh walked into the lounge having finished changing into some grey sweats and a black T-shirt. "No, just about the implantation surgery and follow up, nothing after that." She stopped and thought for a moment. "That's odd, isn't it?"

They quickly located records for UNIT's medical and rehabilitation facilities but there were no records on Ianto or anything related to the assassination or cloning programs. It took about a week for Tosh to find the records. She didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "I can't believe they used the same key strokes to hide these files as they did in their main data base. Hold the Control and Alt keys down and then type UNIT. Very clever."

Owen couldn't understand how careless UNIT was being. "You don't think they want us to find these files do you? Could they have set a trap, or be watching our progress?"

Tosh shrugged. "I haven't seen any trace of us being tracked. I think they've gotten away with this for so long that they've become overly confident and careless. But that's all to the good, isn't it?"

Tosh and Owen scanned the first few pages of medical records together. Nothing terribly interesting there, some mentions of scrapes and bruises from Ianto's flight from Oman and some standard therapy sessions for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Tosh yawned. It had been a long and tiring week and it was already just past midnight. "Well I'm going to bed. There doesn't appear to be anything that interesting so I suggest we continue tomorrow night."

Owen nodded. "Just give me a couple of minutes and I'll join you." Seeing the look of concern on Tosh's face he added, "You've shown me a dozen times how to close out the programs; I'm not going to mess it up."

Normally, Tosh would have stayed up as a precaution, but she was too tired to argue. "Ok, see you in a bit," she replied as walked out of the lounge and toward the bedroom.

Owen continued to read Ianto's files for another hour. Something about them was bothering him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but… He noticed that one of the psychiatric reports had a link at the very end. He clicked on it.

"_Shite, I don't believe it."_

The final group of medical records detailed the attempted brain washing of Ianto after his mission to Oman. A man named Carlos was mentioned several times and it didn't take Owen long to puzzle out that he was one of the clones. As he read on though, he became a little confused, was Carlos a clone or a 'real' person? And then there were records detailing how Carlos was killed, and then later how Carlos was alive, and finally now Carlos was back with John.

Owen muttered as he tried to understand what the records meant. Did the time sequence of the records get mixed up? He reread the notes through from the beginning. No, everything was in proper date order, but the whole section on Carlos and Ianto/John since he returned from Oman, didn't make any sense. And now it looked like they'd turned off the implants. He'd have to show this to Tosh in the morning and see what she thought.

He scrolled to the page at the link and felt his blood run cold when he saw the title:

**FINAL MISSION.**

It was worse than he thought. While it seemed that UNIT was uncertain whether Ianto would be successful on this next assignment there was no doubt about one thing; UNIT had made certain that Ianto/John would not survive the mission.


	14. Countdown to Cardiff

******SUMMARY: John is readied for his final mission. Tosh and Owen devise a daring plan.**

**RATING: **PG-13  
**A/N: The Brigadier mentioned in this story is not Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, nor is he Brigadier Hamilton from Ianto's Journey.**

* * *

"If you're asking me whether he's fit for an assignment, I'm afraid I can't give you a definitive answer," the scientist replied.

"I'm not asking your opinion. I'm asking whether the reactivation of his emotional controls been successful."

The scientist almost rolled his eyes at the Captain's question but caught himself just in time. "Yes, the activation has been successful and it appears that the programming for his next mission has now assimilated into his consciousness. But that's no guarantee…"

"Thank you, I don't need to know anything more. He'll begin his next mission tomorrow," the Captain replied as he rose to leave the room. Leaving the labs, the Captain walked over to the UNIT executive wing. His superiors were already waiting for him in the conference room when he arrived.

The Captain assured the assembly that John was ready and able to carry out his next mission. A few questions were asked, but he was surprised how unconcerned they were about John's possible shortcomings. After he was dismissed, the real discussion began.

"So do we have enough evidence of his performance to assure a successful mission?" one officer asked.

"Does it matter? If he succeeds we will have achieved a great victory and if he fails we will still have a victory of sorts. This is a no lose situation for UNIT," the Brigadier replied. "The reintroduction of the emotional controls was done with no complications and our Assassin appears to be quite enthusiastic about his next assignment, even if he doesn't really understand his own motivation for performing this mission."

"You know, I wish we had a way to see what was happening when it all goes down. It would be a treat to watch the destruction of Torchwood.

Owen had shared his discovery about Ianto's final mission with Tosh first thing the next morning. Tosh was so upset that Owen was concerned her distraction might cause her to be injured on a mission. He had to find a way to keep her safe without alerting Jack. Fortunately the rift was quiet that morning and Owen found a reason to end up in Jack's office.

"I'm telling you this in the strictest confidence, Jack. Tosh is a bit worked up about asking you for permission to visit her mother. She's been on edge and losing her focus for the last week."

"That's ridiculous," Jack replied, "why wouldn't I let her go? I'll have to speak to her about this."

Owen grimaced_. "Shite, now what do I do?"_

"I think there's more to it than that. I think she has a little ambiguity about going home, but can't admit that to herself. So I'd like to ask that you give her some space to work through that, but unless absolutely necessary, restrict her to monitoring our mission from the Hub. I don't want to see her or anyone get injured because she isn't totally focused on the mission."

That sounded perfectly reasonable to Jack and he was glad to go along with Owen's suggestion. As Owen left his office, Jack smiled to himself over how protective Owen had become of Tosh.

John checked and rechecked his weapons carefully for his upcoming mission. He had cleaned his handgun thoroughly, but more importantly he had loaded it with the special ammunition the Brigadier had given him. He wondered why his handler hadn't provided this, but the Brigadier had eased his concern, telling them they were specially prepared for this job. John couldn't believe how fortunate he was to be under the personal care of the Brigadier.

He couldn't wait to get on the train the next morning. One more mission, just one more and then he could retire. And Carlos would be with him, his alone forever. John snickered as he felt himself become hard. He'd have to beat off again in a bit, between the mission and the anticipated reward he was almost uncontrollably excited. He needed to stay calm and focused. He checked his small duffle bag and ran through the assignment's steps one more time.

As he readied himself for sleep he had a feeling of unease pass through him. Hadn't Carlos told him something about his flat and about the Brigadier? He tried to remember but the buzzing in his head became more irritating.

"_Got to ignore that, I remember now that the doctor told me that my day with Carlos was just another dream. No bugs in the room, no worries at all. The Brigadier is my protector, how could that walk in the park be anything but a dream?"_

John relaxed as the buzzing noise in his head subsided. He went into his bathroom, had a quick wank, and got into bed.

"_Kill Jack Harkness. Shouldn't be too hard. Shoot him dead." _Something about Jack Harkness and death was itching at the back of his brain, but he couldn't access the thought.

He fell asleep almost immediately but had disturbing dreams of a woman encased in metal all night long.

The Brigadier smirked with satisfaction as the Captain left the meeting. Stupid git, did he really think he could cover up how unstable John really was? He'd be dealt with. In fact the Brigadier thought he might just administer the discipline himself. Fortunately, it really didn't matter. This would be John's final mission in every sense of the word.

Everyone at UNIT knew that Jack Harkness couldn't stay dead. The other officers had reckoned that John would kill Harkness and the Torchwood team would kill John leaving Harkness stew in his guilt over John's death. And as satisfying as that scenario might have been, the Brigadier had a surprise for everyone. He had a separate team, working in total secrecy designing ammunition that would kill Harkness for good. Not just kill him but destroy him at the atomic level. There wouldn't be a single cell left to regenerate if John was successful. And there wasn't a single record in any database that they could implicate the Brigadier in using atomic disrupter technology to kill Jack Harkness.

After the meeting ended, the Brigadier returned to his office and studied the confidential doctor's reports carefully. It seemed there wasn't any doubt that 'real' Carlos had tipped off John about his mind being manipulated. Good thing that the reactivation of his emotional controls and subsequent programming had not only surfaced this problem but had allowed them to convince John that the whole day was a dream.

A pity about Carlos though. They needed him for one more round of cell samples. They'd have to take a rather large sample to freeze for future use, but it hardly mattered since after that he'd be executed. The Brigadier smiled as he thought back to Rio, that young body pinned under him as he fucked him hard and fast. Too bad the little whore had decided to steal his wallet. Too bad for Carlos anyway. Maybe he'd have a last go with him before he was executed. The Brigadier smiled. Maybe he'd fuck him and kill him himself.

Tosh was so worried about Ianto's impending mission, that she didn't even notice that she was restricted to monitoring rift alerts and tracking alien signals at the Hub. She spent most of her time trying to figure out how Ianto would get into the Hub and how he could successfully carry out his mission. Even Gwen and Liz noticed her distraction.

"So what's up with Tosh?" Liz asked.

Gwen laughed. "She is behaving oddly, isn't she?"

"She may be a geek, but I've never seen her with her head in the clouds the way she is now."

"Maybe she and Owen are planning a wedding." Liz looked at Gwen with disbelief. "Or maybe they are going to elope," Gwen added sheepishly.

Liz laughed. "Why would they have to elope? It's not like anyone is going to stop them."

Gwen shrugged and began to walk away. "Wait, come back, I've got it." Gwen turned back to Liz. "I'll bet she's pregnant. Yeah, that makes sense, she's been nauseous a few times, distracted, Owen's obviously had her restricted to base, that's got to be it."

Gwen didn't know what to say. What Liz said made sense, but somehow she couldn't imagine that Tosh and Owen could be so careless. They were both physicians after all."_Guess slip-ups can happen to anyone."_

Later at Tosh's flat, Owen and Tosh checked the UNIT files as they had each day. Something had changed. In John's main file there was a notation, "Mission Launch, 0700 hours" followed by the next days date.

"Its beginning," Owen said. "So do we tell Jack or not? Do we tell the others? There's no way Ianto can succeed. They want him dead and they are using Torchwood to pull the trigger."

"And how do we keep him alive? If we tell Jack, he may want him killed. If we don't tell the others, they may kill him outright."

As they debated the best course of action, Owen scrolled through the files. The sub folders were untouched except for the last two. A large X was drawn over Ianto's and Carlos' face with the notation, TBT underneath.

"What's that mean?"

Tosh felt sick to her stomach, "I reckon it stands for 'To Be Terminated.'


	15. A Room With a View to a Kill

******SUMMARY: John arrives in Cardiff. Tosh & Owen plan an intervention. ****RATING: **PG-13  
**A/N: A short bonus chapter to keep the tension ramped up.**

* * *

John stepped off the train at the Cardiff station. It was just after 1 PM. He smiled as he vaguely remembered his childhood in Newport. No family to speak of, he was raised by a bachelor uncle until he had moved to London following high school. It was so long ago that John couldn't even remember what his uncle looked like. Pity he died in a fire less than a year later.

He knew the location of the Torchwood headquarters and had been given a map of several unused tunnels into the Hub, as it was called. He nodded as he studied the diagrams for a final time. This was going to be easy. Wait until nightfall, enter through one of the tunnels and kill Jack Harkness. Apparently the man lived at the Hub in a small room under his office.

He checked into a hotel to wait until the appointed time. There he idly flipped through the TV stations, watching a news show, followed by a soap opera. Bored, he turned off the set, rechecked his weapons again and decided to order some room service as he still had several hours to kill before his scheduled entrance into the Hub.

Tosh and Owen argued all evening over whether to tell Jack and the others about Ianto's imminent return.

Tosh was in favor of telling Jack everything. "Well if we don't tell him and Ianto appears in the Hub, he'll shoot him for sure."

"If we do, he'll shoot him anyway," Owen replied.

Tosh believed that Jack knew nothing about Ianto's current situation while Owen was equally convinced that he did.

Finally, they devised a plan. They'd tell Jack, but first they would have to do something so daring that they hardly could believe it themselves. Owen spent the rest of the night studying anything he could find on Ianto's implants while Tosh tracked down Ianto's arrival in Cardiff. She even located a reservation for a John Thomas at the Hilton hotel. She couldn't believe how careless UNIT was. They certainly didn't care if he survived after the mission, but they still needed Ianto actually to complete his mission, didn't they?

"This is going to be tricky," Owen said running his hands through his unruly hair. "There are so many things that could go wrong."

"At least he has a chance this way. Otherwise, he'll be executed for sure. Thank goodness the rift predictor shows no major activity for the next twenty-four hours. That will give us a chance to set up our own diversion."

They went to bed but neither of them got much sleep. Around 6 AM, Owen called Jack and told him that Tosh had food poisoning and he wasn't feeling too well himself. Jack of course, told them to take the day off.

"Thanks, Jack, and if I may give you a friendly warning, stay away from that new curry shop that opened over by Mermaid Quay." Jack laughed and told them to take care. "Well that's sorted," Owen said looking over at Tosh.

They went back to bed for a few more hours, both actually sleeping a bit. Owen's supply of short-acting sleep aids did come in handy once in a while. They got up at 3 PM and verified that Mr. John Thompson had checked into the hotel.

"I reckon he'll want something to eat around 5 to 6 PM. We should be in place before then," Owen said. They arrived at the hotel at 4 PM and went up to Ianto's floor. They had decided that if nothing was delivered by 6 PM, they would break into Ianto's room and put their plan into action.

The hotel floor was silent except for the clatter of the ice-maker that they stood beside in a little room off from the main hallway. At 5:15 PM, they heard the ding of the elevator and a man walked out carrying a tray with covered dishes. He turned down the hall in the direction of Ianto's room passing the vending machine area on his way.

"Oh sorry, I think that might be ours," Tosh said as she grabbed the ticket away from the hotel employee. He began to protest but Tosh nodded signaling that the meal was for the right room. As Tosh grabbed the tray, Owen used his stun gun on the startled man, quickly pushed him to the floor and injected him with a small dose of a retcon/sedative serum.

They had to move quickly. Owen donned the man's official jacket. It was far too big for him, but it would have to do. They knocked on Ianto's room. "Who is it," a voice unmistakably Ianto's said from inside.

"Room service," Owen replied. They waited nervously as the chain was removed and the door bolt was moved to the open position.

Back in London, the Brigadier smiled with satisfaction as he monitored John's signal from the hotel room. He poured himself a large scotch and toasted the mission. Within a few hours Jack Harkness would be dead. And even better, so would John Thomas. It didn't really matter which member of the team killed him, but he hoped it would be Harkness' last act to kill the man himself. The team would be leaderless and in total chaos. He would show up a few days later, with his trusted special team and they would remove all the technology from the Hub. Weapons of imaginable power, knowledge of cures and diseases that were unobtainable anywhere else that he would put to good use unlike that loser Harkness.

He laughed as he tossed back the drink. All he needed was one of those naked cats and he'd be set to rule the world. Now it was just a matter of waiting.


	16. A Roll of the Dice

******SUMMARY: Tosh and Owen attempt to stop John from carrying out his mission. **

**RATING: **PG-13

* * *

The door opened and Owen and Tosh froze as a man who looked quite different from their Ianto answered.

"Room service," Owen finally said trying to enter the room.

This man showed no recognition of Owen or Tosh. John blocked their entrance until he had lifted the covers on the silver trays and verified the contents.

"Come in, but be quick about it."

As they set up the small writing table for dinner, John moved to get something from his duffle bag. Tosh felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She pulled her stun gun, ran over to where John was and zapped him. John crumpled to the ground unconscious.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Owen growled out. He walked over to where Tosh was standing and cursed as he saw the gun in John's hand.

"He recognized us. His eyes went even colder when he let us in."

They rifled through his duffle finding dossiers and pictures on all of them. "He doesn't know us from the past; otherwise all this background material wouldn't be necessary. But he knew we were with Torchwood."

Owen paced the room nervously. "How do we get him back to the Hub? I wasn't thinking we'd have to move him in a state of total unconsciousness."

They had originally thought to give him a mild stun and then administer Versed so he'd be in a state of 'conscious sedation.' Now that looked impossible. Owen worried that if he administered a stimulant to speed John's return to consciousness, then injected Versed and later more anesthetic he might kill him.

"And if we don't?" Tosh asked.

"Good point, let's see if we can't give him a small dose of stimulant and basically slap him awake." It took the better part of an hour, but they did get John up and moving. They grabbed his duffle and began to walk John to the freight elevator. As they waited for the elevator to arrive, Owen ran back into John's room, grabbed the tray of food and dumped it over in the hallway. He dragged the groggy waiter next to it and discarded his jacket nearby.

The freight elevator lead to a garage where Tosh had left her car. They pushed John into the back seat and made two phone calls. One for the clerk at the front desk of the Hilton Hotel and one to Mainframe.

"I just left my room on the seventh floor and there's a waiter lying in the hallway. He was mugged, I think." Owen disconnected the call and smiled as he held up the waiter's wallet for Tosh to see. He'd toss it out the car window on the drive back.

Tosh sent a signal to Mainframe to initiate a program she had loaded the evening before. It would simulate a large rift spike two hours from the Hub in Herefordshire.

A few minutes into their drive back at the Hub, Tosh's cell rang. It was Jack.

"Well that is unusual, but not unprecedented. Do you need…? Owen, Owen is… uh… indisposed. Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I'll come into the Hub and guide you. I think Owen will be fine on his own. Yes, take Liz, don't worry."

They drove to a spot a few minutes from the Hub and waited. As soon as they saw the SUV tear down the street past them they made their way to the parking garage. John followed their orders as they helped him into the Hub. A quick check revealed that the whole team had gone on the wild goose chase.

Tosh made a quick contact with Jack to let him know that she was at the Hub and Owen was with her. "Figured it be easier to keep an eye on him here in case he gets sicker."

Having dealt with the others, they quickly prepped Ianto for surgery. They had four hours to get the emotional controller out of him. Owen didn't know if it could be done, let alone in four hours. But he couldn't cut the connection until at least 8 PM or UNIT would know something had gone wrong.

He and Tosh worked carefully as they loosened the mesh net under the plate Unit had inserted into Ianto's skull. They found the hardware easily enough but as Owen looked at the numerous tiny filaments running into various parts of the brain, he groaned in frustration. There was no way they could detach all the filaments in four hours without killing or seriously damaging the remainder of Ianto's brain.

"Bollocks! I was afraid we'd find something like this." Owen stabilized the skull so they could take a moment to figure out what to do.

Tosh and Owen looked at the schematics for the controller to see if they could disable it rather than remove it outright. Tosh knew she could figure out away if she just had enough time. But time was the one thing they didn't have.

Tosh ran up to her computer and began to work probability calculations. Owen paced nervously behind her. "Go make us some coffee, Owen; your standing over me isn't helping." Owen nodded and headed over to the kitchenette. Less than an hour later she had narrowed down the possible ways to disable to controller to two. She'd need many more hours to refine the calculations to a point where she would be confident which method was better. And time was running out.

As she and Owen debated the merits of both solutions, her comm. crackled.

"Tosh do see any energy signal still coming from Herefordshire."

"No, nothing at all. Let me scan the area." Tosh waited a few seconds. "Not a thing, whatever came through must have burnt up in the atmosphere." That had happened on a couple of other occasions and seemed the most reasonable explanation.

"I'd almost think our friend Mainframe was playing a joke on us," Jack said sighing. "We're heading back; see you in a couple of hours."

Tosh looked at Owen. "We're just going to have to choose one option and hope for the best."

One route was to cut a few of the key secondary connections to the brain but leave the primary connection intact. They could probably save Ianto's life that way, but he might end up an emotionless zombie. They both agreed that Ianto wouldn't want to be himself again and find himself trapped in an emotionless, unresponsive brain.

The other choice was to sever the main connection, leave everything else in place and hope for the best. If it didn't kill Ianto outright, he would be free of the emotional controller. Whether there would be anything left of Ianto was unknown. In the end they chose to, as Owen put it, shoot for the moon.

The minute they cut the main input from controller, Ianto's vitals went wild. His blood pressure plummeted and the brain activity in his Cerebellum fluctuated wildly. Owen stabilized the blood pressure but there was nothing they could do to control the brain activity. They would just have to wait it out. A little more than an hour later, Ianto's brain activity reverted to normal levels.

The readouts weren't good. The Amygdala appeared to be the most severely affected part of the Cerebellum.

"Great, now he has damage to the parts of the brain that control memory, emotion and fear," Owen said as he shook his head sadly. "We should have just killed him. It might have been kinder."

"We did the best we could, Owen. We just have to hope for a reasonable outcome ."

Owen snorted. "He might still end up a zombie. How reasonable is that?" Tosh shot Owen a withering look.

They quickly closed the skull, securing the mesh net and then inserting the tiny plate back into place. "You know, the way this plate integrates into his skull makes me pretty sure that we're not the only ones with access to future medical technology. I wonder what else UNIT has…"

"Owen, not now. We've very little time left," Tosh gently chided.

Just as they finished the surgery, Tosh sent a decoy message out to herself stating that Captain Jack was dead. UNIT would surely pick up on it and assume that their mission had gone successfully.

The alarm sounded as the cog door rolled open. Jack, very much alive along with the Gwen and Liz entered the Hub.


	17. Snake Eyes

******SUMMARY: Tosh and Owen try to prevent the rest of the team from finding out Ianto's in the Hub. **

**RATING: **PG-13

* * *

"What's going on here," Jack asked as he looked down on Owen and Tosh in the medical bay.

"Just working on dissecting that blowfish we killed the other day," Owen replied.

"I thought you were done…and not feeling well…" Jack's voice trailed off as he wiped a hand up his face in exhaustion. "Never mind. Tosh, I need you to check into why Mainframe sent us chasing after nothing. I have a feeling there's more to this than meets the eye." Jack walked over to his office and closed the door.

Tosh said a few words to Owen before heading up to her computers. She's keep an eye on Jack's communications to make sure he didn't let anyone outside the Hub know he was alive. She looked around with relief when she saw Liz heading down to the archives. Gwen was busy writing up a report for the day's activities. That would buy Owen a little time to make sure that Ianto came out of sedation without any complications.

Tosh continued to putter at her computers. An hour later, Jack came out of his office. He looked over Gwen's report and suggested she go home. "Never know what tomorrow will bring, so might as well spend some time with that husband of yours while you can."

Gwen didn't have to be told twice; she grabbed her coat and purse and headed out via the tourist office. Jack headed over to Tosh's work area.

"So, anything wrong with Mainframe?"

"Not that I can see. I think my first suspicions were correct." Tosh said showing Jack the false readings she had created. "Something burned up entering Earth's atmosphere. Probably something large and unfriendly, so despite the long drive, it's likely a good thing you didn't find anything."

Jack bent over Tosh's shoulder looking closely at the data. Tosh felt a shiver run up her spine as Jack effectively had her trapped against her desk.

"So what's up with Owen," he whispered. "I thought he was sick."

Tosh rolled her eyes. "He was, but like me, it was nasty but quick," she whispered back to Jack. "And you know how he is. He can't stand sitting around doing nothing."

"Makes a change from before you two were together," Jack said smiling. "He could spend a whole day sitting in the medical bay playing video games and watching porn on his computer."

"Nice to know I've been a good influence on him."

Jack snorted and nodded. "Well, I'm going out for a bit; make sure you get him home, ok? I can't afford for either of you to relapse, not when Mainframe is sending us chasing all over the area looking for non-existent alien ships." Jack went back to his office, grabbed his coat and headed out on the invisible lift.

Tosh watched on the CCTV until she saw Jack strolling across the Plass and out of site. _"Probably going to brood on a roof for a while,"_ she thought.

That just left Liz. She radioed Liz on the com but got no response. She checked the tracker in her cell phone and found that Liz was already home. Tosh shrugged. Liz probably left quietly through one of the exits in the lower levels. She had done that a few times in the past, much to Jack's irritation.

Tosh shut down her computer and joined Owen in the medical bay. "How's he doing?"

Owen pulled the sheet down he had over Ianto's head. "Still sedated, but his vitals are steady. I'm wondering if it would be better to hide him here or take him to one of our flats."

"I thought we agreed on keeping him here. You have medical equipment here that you don't have at home and we'll be close by."

"I know," Owen said sighing, "but I have a bad feeling about keeping him in the Hub. It's too much like when he hid his cyber-girlfriend in the sub-basement. It's risky and if Jack finds out…"

"Finds out what?" A voice said from above the medical bay. It was Liz. And she had a gun pointed at Owen.

Jack stood on top of the roof of Capital Tower taking in his favorite view of the city. It was a quiet night, cool and a little breezy, but not unusual for early summer in Cardiff_._

"_All these people depend on me. And I don't even know how long I'll be staying. I need to hire someone to be my second. Someone I can train to take over when I leave."_

He thought about all the people he had worked with over the years. His current team was highly skilled, but none of them really had the overall leadership abilities he knew would be necessary. Tosh, Owen and Liz were specialists. Gwen was the only possibility and she had already told Jack that she and Rhys were planning on having a family and she might want to cut back her hours at that point.

Jack knew he needed to get someone started sooner rather than later. It would take time for a new team member to become accepted, especially if they were someone who the others would have to take orders from.

"_Too bad about Ianto, he had some leadership potential…no point going there,"_ Jack chided himself, _"he's never coming back to the Hub." _

Jack smiled. He'd call UNIT in the morning. Surely they had someone who would be qualified. A junior officer with potential, but not, perhaps, the right fit for senior command at UNIT. And he knew that the Brigadier would more than happy to stick his nose into Torchwood business. He and the Brigadier had been at each other for months. This would be a good way to start to patch things up so that his team wouldn't be at odds with UNIT when the Doctor arrived.

As he headed back to the Hub, for the first time in a while Jack felt at peace.

"_Sometimes the hardest part is making the decision to move forward,"_ he thought. _"Things are going to be fine from now on_."


	18. Acey Duecey

******SUMMARY: There's a whole lot of explaining going on in the Hub. ****RATING: **PG-13

**A/N: Thank you for all of your comments!**

* * *

"Liz put the gun down," Owen said as he moved to block Ianto from her view.

"I don't know what game you two are playing here but that is clearly not a blowfish. You've got ten seconds to explain what's going on, or I start shooting."

"Look," Tosh said, "he's unconscious and of no danger to you. He's someone that we know."

"Know, how?"

"Why don't we wait until Jack returns and we'll explain everything. Just put the gun down before someone gets hurt."

"Fine. I'll call Jack, but I'm keeping my gun on you until he returns and hears what you have to say."

"I need to adjust his drip, OK?"

Liz nodded her consent, never moving from her gun off of Owen. She pulled her cell out and called Jack. "Something strange is going on at the Hub Jack, I you need to come back immediately." She listened for a bit. 'No, I have it under control, but you really need to come. Ok, then."

Owen sighed with relief. As long as Liz didn't get spooked, they'd be fine. Jack would give them a chance to explain. Wouldn't he?

He looked over at Tosh who was watching Liz carefully. Tosh shifted her position as she pretended to check one of Ianto's monitors. 'The gun,' she mouthed to Owen. Owen gave his head a tiny shake. 'Not hers.'

Owen's eyes widened and he nodded. The gun Liz had grabbed had to be Ianto's, loaded with ammunition powerful enough that even Jack might not be immune to it.

As the minutes ticked by Liz kept glancing nervously over to the cog door. Tosh noticed how her whole body turned leaving her back exposed to the medical bay.

"_That's odd,"_ Tosh thought. _"She must be very certain that we don't have any weapons." _Tosh smiled as she felt the familiar weight of the gun sitting in her shoulder holster.

Finally, they heard the sound of the invisible lift being activated. To Tosh and Owen's horror, Liz turned and aimed the gun directly at Jack.

"So nice of you to join us, Jack. It seems your employees have been up to a little mischief, which puts me in an awkward position. They bollixed up the main plan which leaves me to finish it properly."

Jack looked genuinely puzzled as he stepped off the lift and began to walk toward her. "Come on Lizzie, what are you talking about? You know that gun can't hurt me. But if you must, feel free to take a shot."

"No!" Owen cried as he made a dash up the stairs from the medical bay. Liz turned to shoot him and at that moment Tosh pulled out her gun and shot Liz twice, once in the head, and once in the chest.

Liz appeared to sway on her feet and then collapsed onto her knees as the top of her head caught on fire. She looked at the gun in her hand and then at Tosh finally understanding what had happened. "You bitch," she said looking at Tosh. Owen and Jack began to run toward her as she appeared to shrink into the floor.

By the time they reached her all that was left was a puddle of liquid and a small metal object with a single filament running out of it.

"What the hell just happened?" Jack said looking at Owen in horror. "What have you done?" he said looking over at Tosh.

Tosh methodically checked her gun removing three more rounds of ammunition before putting the gun down on the counter next to her. "That was meant for you Jack."

Jack moved closer to the medical bay to see who was lying on the gurney. He didn't look familiar at all to Jack. And then in a moment of serendipity, the man awoke and spoke. "Carlos, where is Carlos?"

"That sound like, he sounds just like…" Jack started to say as he felt he legs buckling under him. Owen grabbed him and helped him over to a chair.

"Just take it easy Jack; we'll explain everything once you're ok."

Jack tried to get out of the chair and push back Owen, but Owen held him fast in the chair. "You've made enough rash decisions Jack for a dozen lifetimes, just stay there while I check on my patient." Owen looked over at the bay and heard Tosh whispering while the patient whimpered in pain. "Tosh get up here now and make sure our captain behaves himself."

Tosh pocketed the ammunition picked up the now empty gun and ran up the stairs of the medical bay and over to where Jack was sitting. She sat far enough from Jack that he couldn't touch her and while she didn't have the gun aimed at him, her intentions were clear.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?" Jack said.

Several hours later found Jack, Owen and Tosh sitting around the table in the conference room. Gwen had joined them as well. Tosh had explained how UNIT had assembled a team of assassins as well as tried to create a group of clones and how fortunate they were that both programs seemed to be largely unsuccessful.

Jack and Gwen were horrified to learn about the ruthless termination of clones as well as the complete destruction of free will in both the clones and the assassins.

Though she had missed Liz being killed, Gwen she looked pale and shaken.

"She was a clone, right here working in the Hub. She could have gone off on any of us at any time. And you let her in here," she said pointing at Jack.

"I was told she was Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's niece." Owen rolled his eyes. "Well, she might be." Jack looked at the incredulous faces across the table from him. "Or maybe not," he conceded.

"You know, Jack raises a good point," Tosh pointed out. "The original could very well be his niece; we have no idea who she is."

"I bet I can confirm that down pretty quickly using normal police channels," Gwen replied. "But if that's true, we don't know whether she is still alive or not, do we?

Tosh shook her head 'no.'

Gwen turned to look at Jack. "How could you have sent Ianto to UNIT? I can hardly believe it."

"You didn't even really know him Gwen," Jack retorted.

"I don't have to have to have been his best friend. Look what they did to him. From what Owen has said, he'll never be his real self again."

"For the last time, I didn't know they would make him into a killer. You can't hold me responsible for that."

Tosh was furious. "Oh yes we can, and we do. What did you think would happen to him?"

Jack opened his mouth to reply and then seeing the look on Tosh's face, wisely shut it again.

"Just put him in a cell and let him rot, that's what you thought they'd do. I was in one of those cells. Only for a month or so, but you know what it did to me. I truly can't understand what you were thinking."

Owen snorted. "I don't think he was thinking. You were so angry and self-righteous, weren't you Jack? And not just about the fact that the Cyberman was dangerous. Oh no, this was personal. You were mad because Ianto tricked you, led you on, and made you feel like you were special."

"Yes," Jack whispered. "I am sorry you know."

"Save it, Jack. We have bigger things to worry about," Tosh replied. "That Brigadier from UNIT will be coming with his special troops in three days. We need to have a plan to deal with him, keep Ianto safe and rescue the remaining clones and their real selves."

"And let's not forget, there's still one assassin out there and at least one clone that isn't being used as a comfort companion," Owen added.

Jack stared at the metal rod sitting on the table in from of him. "So this is what was implanted in Ianto's brain as well."

"Not exactly," Tosh replied. Just speculating, but it appears that the handful of clones that were used as informants had this device implanted. It's much simpler than what Ianto has in his brain. I reckon it was mostly to transmit data to and from UNIT, though they must have enhanced Liz's somehow so that she was able to act on her own."

"Ianto's controller was much more complex." Tosh displayed images of the two mechanisms on the conference room screen. "We didn't have time to get it out, so we cut the main input to disconnect him from the radio signals being sent to him by UNIT."

Jack looked at horror at the images. He pointed to the controller that was implanted into Ianto's brain. "Do you know what this is?"

"What do you mean?" Owen asked.

"That's a modified component from a Cyberman. I don't know how they got a hold of an original, but it looks nearly identical. The good news is it sounds like it isn't a true controller but one used only for positive and negative reinforcement purposes. I hate to think what might happen if they had progressed much farther on this project."

Tosh had a final image. "So here's the image of the special ammunition and the chemical compound it contained. The best I can work out is that it was some sort of super-bullet from the near future, designed to kill even the hardiest of living enemies by turning them into their basic atomic substances."

Jack's eyes narrowed. And then he burst out laughing. "Sorry, I just realized what that formula is for; I can hardly believe it." He looked up to see his employees looking at him without any amusement.

"Ok, but you are looking at a 40th century cockroach extermination formula."

''Oh for fuck's sake…" Owen said rolling his eyes.

"No really, that's what it is. When humans begin to travel in space, a lot of earthbound pests go with them. Rats, mice, fleas, cockroaches, lice, as well as numerous viruses and bacteria. Of all of them, cockroaches prove the most difficult to control. They have survived when entire planets were left barren by nuclear blasts, sonic blasts, solar flares and photon radiation. This was just the latest formulation claiming to eradicate them."

"Well it seemed to work pretty well on Liz," Owen pointed out causing Jack to frown. "What would it have done to you?"

Jack shrugged. "Would have turned me into a pile of muck, much like Liz. I've only had one death that took me to a similar level of disintegration, I was told it took ten days to come back from that, and it was really, really, painful as I remember."

"Why would UNIT believe that it would kill you then?"

"Probably because of the advertising slogan. 'Turns Your Pests Into a Subatomic Mess.' The manufacturers got into some major trouble with the IPCC as I recall."

"The what?" Gwen asked.

"The Inter-Planetary Communications Commission. They are the watchdogs for all new products being introduced across the planets. The number of scams for medicinal cures and the like increase exponentially as man moves out through the solar system."

Jack looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'm pretty sure though that cures for male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction still are the two problems most frequently subject to erroneous claims."

For the first time since they met in the conference room, the whole team laughed.

They worked through the next day planning their strategy against UNIT. Defending the Hub was the easy part; they had numerous strategies devised for keeping intruders out even if the Hub wasn't manned. Keeping Ianto safe from UNIT and rescuing the rest of the unwilling participants would prove far more difficult.

Tosh searched the UNIT database trying to locate the remaining assassin, the clones and most importantly Carlos. Ianto was conscious but was unable to provide much information beyond his knowledge that the original humans used for the cloning project were kept in some type of dormitory on the UNIT base just outside of London. The clones would be kept separately, but probably near the special labs set up for this project.

As for the last assassin and the possible spy clone, Tosh could find no information on where they were hidden.

They had one more day before UNIT would come knocking on their door and Torchwood wasn't ready.


	19. Ace Up the Sleeve

**SUMM****ARY: The teams plans its defense, Jack begins to realize what he's done. ****RATING: **PG-13

* * *

It was quiet in the Hub now. No chance of anyone going home but after almost twenty-four hours without a break, Jack ordered everyone to bunk down for four hours.

Tosh had already dozed off twice at her computer so she headed over to the ratty sofa with little fuss. Owen had claimed that he felt fine, but after grumbling for a bit he found a quiet spot in the conference room and put his head down on the table. Gwen curled up in an overstuffed chair in no better condition than the couch and was snoring within five minutes.

Jack stood vigil in the medical bay watching over Ianto. As he studied the sleeping man his mind drifted back to when Ianto first joined the Hub. He remembered his attraction to him and how they flirted back and forth never really getting anywhere. And then there was the betrayal, Jack's discovery and Ianto's defiance and finally the anger that burst forth from Jack like a volcano long held in check and overdue for an eruption.

"_He betrayed me, he betrayed the team,"_ he remembered rationalizing. A little more thought and he'd recalled what Owen had said. _"He's probably in shock; he might not even know what he's saying."_

It seemed so long ago. Did he really think that UNIT wouldn't hurt Ianto? Truth was he couldn't remember. It in the end did it matter? Because no matter how he tried to justify his actions, he knew that he was ultimately responsible for what happened to Ianto. There were other choices. He could have retconned Ianto, or kept him on or he really didn't know, but something else. Anything but this.

John's eyes opened. He blinked to clear his vision and saw a man with blue eyes staring at him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little niggling thought of 'beware' was itching at his brain. But the man was a stranger and he no sense of fear or anger or any other emotion.

"How are you feeling, Ianto." John's eyes narrowed in confusion. Was this man speaking to him? If he wasn't, who else could he be speaking to?

Jack saw his confusion. "John, your name is John right." John gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

"Do you know me John, do you remember me?"

He looked familiar but was this a dream? He had dreamt of a place like this before, metal and dripping water and concrete. And a man, a man with blue eyes and a coat. But that wasn't real, so he must not be awake.

"Who are you," he croaked out.

Jack helped him to sit up and gave him a sip of water. "My name is Captain Jack Harkness."

John startled at the name. He knew he had an important assignment concerning this man. Before he could stop himself he spoke. "I'm supposed to kill you, I think."

Jack snorted. "Well, I think we can take that off your to-do list. Are you sure you don't know me from earlier in your life?" Ianto shook his head 'no.' The dream, after all, didn't count.

John was genuinely puzzled by Jack's question. "How would I know you? I don't think we went to school together, did we?"

Jack snorted. "No, nothing like that, but we used to work together."

John studied him carefully. "I've held a lot of odd jobs in my life. I'm sorry I don't remember you at all.

If Ianto had railed at him or tried to kill him, Jack could have dealt with it. But Ianto's total lack of emotion and recognition at seeing Jack shook him to the core. Jack's guilt sat heavy on his heart. There was no way to apologize or put things right. No way to clear the air or ask for forgiveness. This terrified Jack. Not being able to settle this with Ianto meant that Jack was going to have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life. And in Jack's case that meant eternity.

Jack reached out and put his hands on John's shoulders. "Please Ianto, you have to know me, we need to talk."

The desperation in Jack's voice frightened John jarring him back to his own version of reality. He pushed back Jack as best he could. "Get away from me, where's Carlos?" "Damn you, where is my Carlos?"

"Just take it easy. I'm not going to hurt you, but I need to talk to you."

John tried to sit up and cried out as hot pain ran through his head.

Owen was woken by a signal from a remote monitor of Ianto's vitals he had set up in the conference room before he went to sleep. As he stepped out into the main area of the Hub, he heard the commotion and ran down into the medical bay.

"Oi, get away from him Harkness, haven't you done enough damage already."

"Owen, I have to…"

"Get out of this medical bay, Jack. Now," Owen ordered. When Jack refused to budge, Owen grabbed him and attempted to drag him out of the area.

Gwen was awake by now and ran down to help. "Jack, come on Jack. Let's go upstairs to your office, ok. We'll sit down and talk, you and me."

Somehow Gwen's words penetrated Jack's focus on Ianto and he reluctantly acquiesced. John nervously watched him leave. Owen tried to get Ianto to lie down but he was resistant and Owen didn't want to upset him further. He propped a few pillows behind Ianto's back and helped him sit up on the small bed they had moved into the medical bay.

"There you go, easy now. Sorry he barged in here," Owen said.

"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on? Am I a prisoner? Where's Carlos?"

Owen didn't know what, if anything he should stay. He didn't want to leave Ianto in a confused and anxious state, but he wasn't sure telling him things that he would be unable to process was going to be helpful.

"Let me get a colleague to join us and maybe we can explain."

Tosh joined them after being commed by Owen. She was still sleepy, and though she had thought about what she might say to Ianto if they were ever reunited, she found herself struggling to communicate.

"What I'm going to tell you is true. You may not remember it or believe it, but it's the truth. A lot of it doesn't speak well for us, or for you really." She took a deep breath and continued. "You already know that we are an organization called Torchwood. What you don't know is that some years ago, you were part of this organization. You had a different name; your real name is Ianto. My name is Tosh and I was your friend…"

Jack groaned after watching Gwen leave his office. He'd messed up so badly. He had tried to be a better person, one the Doctor would be proud of, but he had failed miserably. He was pretty sure that the Doctor would have terminated Lisa, although by less violent means, but he never would have harmed someone like Ianto. He wallowed in a 'how am I going to make this right' stupor for a bit and then realized he couldn't afford to waste any more time on self pity. If he didn't get the team through the next forty-eight hours, he'd have a lot more to make right than just Ianto.

Damn it! He was still Jack Harkness, former Time Agent, and intergalactic criminal. He hadn't been deemed the best conman in ten solar systems for nothing. And while he might be a bit out of practice, he still had a few aces up his sleeve.

Jack closed his eyes and prayed for strength to every deity he had come across in his long life. If his plan didn't work, within the next two days, Torchwood would cease to exist. Time to make some calls. He hesitated and then picked up the phone.

"Good morning Brigadier, I hope I'm not disturbing you."


	20. Ante Up

**SUMM****ARY: Team Torchwod plans their escape from the Hub. ****RATING: **PG-13  
**WARNING: None **

* * *

John listened as Tosh finished her story. It seemed fantastical to him. But the more she and Owen had answered his questions the more he seemed to remember. "I do recall some of things you're telling me, but they seem like a dream or something that happened to someone else."

He refused, however, to believe that the Brigadier at UNIT had used him for his own purposes. "I fell off a ladder and had to have brain surgery," he insisted. "Nobody was controlling my thoughts, that ridiculous."

Tosh and Owen had documents they could show him, but decided to not bombard John with more information. After all, he had already been told a number of disturbing things about his past including keeping the partially converted Lisa at the Hub and had showed little reaction. They weren't sure if it was due to disbelief or confusion or if he had lost the emotional capacity to react.

They all agreed on two things. First, that they would call him John since that was the only identity he knew and second, that they would do everything to find Carlos, the real Carlos and bring him home safely.

The Brigadier listened quietly to Jack's information. Clones and assassins. He knew when he was forced into retirement that changes were going on at UNIT that he didn't approve of. But this was beyond anything he had every imagined. He felt a little sick inside. So much of what he had feared had come to pass.

"I'm sorry Brigadier, but there's even more bad news. Do you have a niece or a great-niece, a ginger, maybe goes by the name of Liz?"

"What do you know about her Jack? If this is some kind of joke…" Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart fumed.

"No, no joke at all. I think she…uh…worked for us."

"My great-niece has been missing for almost five years."

Jack explained about their recently deceased archivist.

"Do you know for certain that the person you called Liz was a clone? Could my Lizzie still be alive?"

"It would appear that she was a clone, the implants weren't as sophisticated as the ones in our assassin. We can't find any records of the real Liz, and I don't want to give you false hope."

"Quite right, quite right," the Brigadier muttered. "It seems to me that you've got to defend your base as well as secure the safety of the remaining subjects of these illegal experiments. That includes any remaining altered beings as well as the original prisoners."

The Brigadier was relieved to hear that there was only a single clone and a single assassin still active. As for the prisoners used to create them, Jack speculated that there might be a handful left, maybe as few as one or two.

"Would you have any idea where the labs are on the UNIT base? Assuming we can escape from the Hub, we need to be able to get into the labs, retrieve any living humans and destroy everything else that's there."

"I can do better than that. You know that a number of us old-timers were forced into retirement at the same time. It so happens that one of my fellow retired officers is the chap who started looking at cloning technology, must be fifteen years ago. He voluntarily shut down the program when it became clear that UNIT wasn't prepared to deal with the ethical questions surrounding cloning. Now the cyber implants, I'm not aware of any attempts to transplant them in humans but there were scientists analyzing the cyber technology we scavenged after Canary Wharf."

Jack felt a bit of relief wash over him. At least they wouldn't be going in totally blind. "Do you think your colleagues could draw some maps for us, give us some guidance as to the best route for gaining access to the labs?"

"Oh, I can do better than that, Jack. Much better. Here's what I'd like to propose…"

Jack called a meeting shortly after he ended his call with the Brigadier. Everyone sat around the conference room table except Owen who listened in on his com as he sat in the medical bay monitoring Ianto.

When he finished explaining the plan, the team looked at him in disbelief. Owen was the first to break the silence.

"Oi, so you've called the cavalry for us. Good work. Too bad they're all tottering around in a haze of drinks at the clubs they hang out at all day.

"That's not really true, Owen," Jack replied. "Our Brigadier is the oldest of the bunch and he's totally clear headed. The other officers who were pushed out of UNIT are only in their sixties."

Gwen rolled her eyes dramatically.

"We'll be the muscle. But they can be the brains, the knowledge center to guide us through the facility. And we have one more person to assist us. Our insider."

"Martha Jones," Owen guessed.

"You got it; her career's been sidelined at UNIT for the last few years. She still sees Lethbridge-Stewart from time to time, so he's going to try to meet with her in the next few hours."

"Let's hope she's not on vacation," Tosh said.

Jack described the basics of the plan he and the Brigadier had worked out. There was only one hitch. "Do you think John is well enough to leave the Hub?"

Owen wasn't happy with the idea, but there didn't seem to be much of a choice. "I hate the idea of moving a man in his condition. He's recovering from brain surgery after all. If we use one of the access tunnels we can use a desk chair to roll him along. We'll have to pretty much carry him down to the tunnel and then back up the stairway to the exit."

Jack handed out assignments to his Team. Tosh was in charge of setting up fake bio-signals for everyone so that UNIT wouldn't know the Hub was empty as well as booby traps in case they actually managed to gain access. Their data files would also be set to self-destruct if the multiple layers of encryption Tosh had installed were hacked. At Jacks insistence, she would wire the archives for destruction if they were breached.

"That could destroy the whole Hub. With this little time, I can't guarantee that what I design will not cause structural damage." Tosh explained, "But I can assure you that no one is getting access to those archives."

Owen would continue to monitor John as well as pack up weapons, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals they might need. He would also help Tosh lay the physical charges at the entrance to the archives.

Gwen continued her search for the missing assassin and clone. She had a lead on the clone, but she had to do some more checking before she could nail down his identity and whereabouts with certainty. Then if she had time, she would try to locate the Assassin. From the bits that Tosh had been able to extract from the UNIT files, it appeared that the remaining assassin was on assignment. That meant they probably wouldn't have to worry about him playing a role in the attempted takeover of the Hub, but they had to be sure.

Jack focused on refining the details of the plan for the counter-attack on UNIT. He took over searching the UNIT data bases from Tosh's laptop for any information about the layout of the labs, the size and training of the staff, as well as the number of guards around the facility.

Just for the hell of it, he sent out a few e-mail messages under Gwen's name implying that the staff at Torchwood Three was in disarray due to the incapacitation of their leader. Gwen shook her head good naturedly. "You're making me look like an idiot. You are so going to owe me Jack when this is over."

Jack smiled. He knew how much Gwen hated being thought of as less capable than the other team members just because she's never finished college. She was anything but.

Gwen sighed and took control of her e-mail. "We'll just go for full throttle incompetence shall we?" She began to type.

'_Rhys, I won't be home for a few days. Captain Jack has a big problem and we need to stay at the Hub until it's fixed. It's a big __**permanent**__ problem, but don't worry, it's no worse than when Buster got old. I'm fine, so really, don't worry.'_

Seeing the puzzled look on Jack's face, Gwen laughed. "Of course he knows you can't die. He's only been there twice when it happened. And before you ask, Buster was his childhood dog. UNIT will think I'm trying to be very cluelessly sneaky about letting Rhys know you're dead." She hit the send button with satisfaction.

It was just Noon. "We need to be at the end of the escape tunnel at 22:00 hours," Jack reminded everyone. "Any sign of UNIT, Tosh."

"Negative, Jack. If they were here, I'd know it. My guess is they'll try to take us by surprise this evening. It won't be fully dark until after 9 PM and we'll be gone by then."

Jack ordered in some lunch from the one take-away shop they knew would be absolutely safe. It was run by aliens that Jack had 'liberated' from UNIT custody. Jack had so expertly faked their deaths, that Unit had no idea that they were still alive, and these friends would never do anything to jeopardize the team. The Jalwarths were fearsome warriors on their own planet, but had proved remarkably adept at living a quiet existence and running the only pierogi shop in Cardiff.

When the food was delivered, Jack was pleased to see that it was brought by the unofficial head of the Jalwarths. "I wanted to make sure I got the order correct. Did you order one dozen or two dozen of these?

"Well, I hope there's closer to two dozen."

"You did say two extra orders of sauerkraut, yes?" Jack nodded. Clearly his friend recognized the signal for emergency assistance that Jack had arranged with him more than ten years earlier.

"You asked for some extra forks?" We need around nine or ten," Jack answered letting them know the time of the attack.

Jack paid the alien and returned to the Hub.

By 15:00 hours Owen had loaded the weapons and medical equipment into backpacks. He'd had to pare the supplies down twice to make the loads manageable. Owen helped John change into some loose track pants and a blue shirt of Jack's.

John sniffed the sleeve of Jack's shirt. "Smells different, but familiar."

"Yes, well best not to think too much about it."

Jack and Owen helped John up the steps from the medical bay. It was a slow process and John was exhausted by the time they finished. Owen settled him into a small desk chair. Clearly they were going to have to leave a bit more time to get through the escape route by 22:00 hours.

"Stay there, we're leaving in a few hours. So just stay there and don't get in the way, OK?"

Ianto nodded. He looked around the Hub in curiosity. It seemed so familiar from his dreams, but he couldn't remember ever working here. He didn't think Tosh and Owen were leading him on, but if true, he couldn't access any clear memories of his employment.

Gwen had identified the missing clone. He was working at the Ministry of Defense of all things. Just a low level bureaucrat, no danger to Torchwood. Jack was certain that the Brigadier had a connection that could be used to warn the Prime Minister. As for the remaining assassin, it looked like he was somewhere in the United States. As soon as they were at Lethbridge-Stewart's safe house, he'd call an old friend in the CIA and let him know what they had found.

His only fear was that when the new Brigadier realized he had been played, that he would somehow signal for the clone and/or the assassin to do something drastic. He hoped his friends from the pierogi shop understood that unless it looked like the Hub was going to be breached that they should hold off on dealing with the UNIT team for two hours. That should give them just enough time to escape, get to the safe house and make those two critical calls.

The team sat down just after 19:00 hours to run through the escape plan one last time. Tosh had completed the bio-signal program. She had created only three signals – one for her, Gwen and Owen. "You're dead of course," she told Jack, "you too," she said looking at John, "and Liz really is dead."

"I've set the signals to go through movements in random patterns for an indefinite period of time. I reckon UNIT won't figure out that the signals are faked until long after the Jalwarths have dealt with them."

The computer self-destructs as well as the archive demolition program was also complete. They had packed the most useful weapons, Tosh's laptop, medical supplies, everything they could anticipate needing.

"We'll be leaving in about twenty minutes. Once we enter the tunnel we will maintain complete silence. All comms turned off now, please. Anything we've forgotten?"

John spoke for the first time since he had been helped up from the medical bay. "Excuse me."

Everyone turned their attention to him.

"You need to let the bird out, I think. And the gorilla, what about her?"

"What..." Jack started to say.

"Myfanwy!" Gwen said. "He's talking about Myfanwy and Janet."

Tosh checked and saw no sign of UNIT around the Plass. It was earlier than Jack would have liked, just dusk, but they couldn't leave Myfanwy in the Hub to an uncertain fate. Jack climbed up to her aerie and fed her some chocolate before cranking open the skylight. She hesitated only a moment before flying out. Jack closed the skylight after her. He hoped she was smart enough to stay away from the Hub if the skylight wasn't open.

As for Janet, Owen ran down and made sure her feeders were full. She didn't much care for the monkey-chow pellets, but it would have to do. He doubted that UNIT would get to this level of the Hub but it might be some days before they could return.

It was almost 20:00 hours. Jack and Owen carried the rolling chair down to the passageway while Gwen and Tosh put on two of the backpacks. Jack and Owen returned, put on their packs and helped John into a standing position and began to help him down the long stairway at the back of Jack's office that led to the tunnel.

It was slow going and everyone kept checking their watches. Precious time was slipping away. If they weren't at the exit by 10 PM, Lethbridge-Stewart's team wouldn't wait. It was too dangerous.

"Tosh, Gwen, you two go ahead. If we're not there by 22:00 hours go with the Brigadier," Jack ordered.

As the women reluctantly headed down the stairs, John pulled away from Owen and Jack. "Leave me," he whispered. "Just promise you'll get Carlos out safely."

"Oh no you don't," Jack growled. He shrugged off his pack. "I'm afraid you are going to have to carry both of these," Jack said as he handed his pack to Owen.

"You, over here," he ordered John. John was terrified but he didn't dare refuse. "Sorry, but I'm afraid your dignity is in for a beating."

Before John could react, Jack hoisted him over his shoulders in a fireman's lift. "Don't even think about struggling," Owen cautioned. "You have a head wound and a tumble down the stairs isn't going to do it any good. And besides…"

"He can't die, can he," John interrupted. "I remembered that just now."

Jack raised an eyebrow at Owen and they began to make their way carefully but at a better pace down the stairs.


	21. On A Roll

**SUMM****ARY: Team Torchwod make their escape from the Hub. Will they be able to get to London in time to rescue the remaining participants of the clone and assassin experiments.**

* * *

The team hurried on to the secret exit from the Hub. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs Jack and Owen were able to push John along almost as fast as Tosh and Gwen were proceeding. They walked for over an hour. The tunnel was fairly level but had numerous twists and turns. Except for their torches, the tunnel was completely dark.

Tosh and Gwen reached a point where the tunnel divided and stopped to wait for the men to catch up. Once they did Jack suggested that they rest for a few minutes. "

"We'll be taking the bend to the right. It isn't much further, but it's a long way up at the end."

"I wouldn't like to try to get through here without torches," Gwen remarked. "What was this tunnel used for?"

"Believe it or not, it was always meant as the escape route of last resort. I think you'll be surprised when you see where we exit."

"I think we've walked half way across Cardiff," Owen said as he looked back at the way they had come. "We must have walked about two miles."

"Actually it's only a little over a mile in terms of the tunnel length. And we're only about a half mile from the Hub. It loops around due to the configuration of the waterfront. Time to get moving, we're down around 80 feet here so we'll need the time to get up the last bit."

When they reached the final set of stairs Jack once again had to carry John. It was much slower going this time as Jack was tired and the final stairs up were almost twice as long as the initial ones down.

They reached the end of the tunnel with a few minutes to spare.

"Lights off everyone," Jack ordered.

"It's a sewer grate," Tosh remarked as she looked at the opening in the top of the tunnel.

"Shhh. It's actually supposed to look like a water spillway but it's fake obviously," Jack whispered.

The team waited in silence for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally they heard the sounds of the grate being pried off. A torch shone into the tunnel.

"Anyone down there?" someone said softly. No one said a word. "Uh…Colonel Nigel Price, UNIT, retired here. Any friends of Lethbridge-Stewart about?"

Jack began to roll his eyes and then realized that no one could see him. "Yes we're here," he hissed.

A ladder was lowered through the opening and they began to climb up one by one. The opening was small and there was no way Jack could carry John up the ladder. So Owen went up after Tosh and Jack and Gwen fairly pushed John up the ladder until Owen, Tosh and the Colonel could pull him the rest of the way.

It was dark and there were no street lights nearby. They had to be in some type of undeveloped area. Suddenly a nearby van turned its lights on. They looked around and realized they were in Hamadryad Park. The Colonel and Owen hustled John over to the van and Jack and Gwen exited the tunnel.

Once inside the van, the Colonel ordered them to lie down and not speak. "Seems to be a bit of a ruckus going on at the Millennium Center. We'll be circling north of the city center before heading east to London. We'll be staying off the M4 as much as possible, but there's always a chance we'll run into a road block. So keep down, and keep quiet, please."

They drove for about an hour. The radio was on and the passengers listened to reports of first a shooting and then a full scale gang war in progress at the Millennium Center.

"I don't know who these friends of yours are, Harkness, but they are proving to be a bit much for the UNIT folks. And somehow the police are staying away. Funny that, don't you think. And NO, don't answer."

They drove for almost another hour. From the feel of the road surfaces, it was clear that they were taking secondary roads all the way. Finally the van stopped.

Someone outside the van spoke. "Ok, get Harkness and that tech wizard of his out." It was Lethbridge -Stewart's voice.

The door of the van slid open. Everyone but John got out. "We mounted an attack on the UNIT research facility but we need your assistance." Dropping his voice, he whispered, "there have been some complications, we'll need the two of you to come with us to help."

He turned to Gwen and Owen. "The rest of you will be taken to my home in Guildford." Lethbridge-Stewart dropped his voice again. "Do not say anything to your friend in the van."

They heard John call out from the van. "Carlos? Is that you?"

He turned to Owen. "You're the doctor, right?" Owen nodded. "Good, I want you to stay with the man and you as well," he said pointing to Gwen. "We'll radio you with details as soon as we sort things out.

Gwen and Owen had many questions they wanted to ask, but they could sense that the Brigadier was preoccupied with the attack on UNIT headquarters. All they could do now was to follow his instructions, keep John safe and stall off any panic John might have about Carlos' whereabouts.

Jack and Tosh accompanied the Brigadier over to a waiting car. A driver was behind the wheel. The Brigadier got in the front while Tosh and Jack got into the back.

"Will someone tell me what's going on?" Jack demanded.

"We were largely successful in our attack on the UNIT facility. But I'm afraid there have been casualties. Very unfortunate casualties."


	22. Squeeze Play

******SUMMARY: Tosh and Jack learn some disturbing news about the attempted assault on the UNIT facility in London. Can they rescue the remaining prisoners in time? ****RATING: **PG-13

* * *

The minute the Brigadier's sedan pulled away, Jack pulled out his cell and made a call. 'Well that's sorted, my contact in the CIA is waiting for the image of the remaining assassin." He took Tosh's laptop and sent the photograph of the assassin off to his contact.

Lethbridge-Stewart confirmed that the clone at the Ministry of Defense has been dealt with the moment they entered the UNIT base. When the Brigadier fell silent Jack couldn't wait any longer.

"What did you mean about casualties? Did you find the prisoners and the clones?"

Lethbridge-Stewart held up his hand for quiet. "All in good time, Jack," he said as he turned and handed an open laptop to Tosh. "See what you make of this Miss Sato. The red dots are our men, the green dots are other individuals in the facility."

Tosh studied the schematic of the UNIT facility. "It looks like you were able to gain entry to the clone lab, but what's this going on at this entry point," she asked as she pointed to the map.

"We got to the clone area, but found only one living clone. That door you've pointed out is the entry to the high risk security cells for special prisoners."

Tosh searched her memories, but the layout didn't mesh with where she had been kept as a prisoner. Lethbridge-Stewart nodded. He knew exactly what Tosh was thinking.

"No not your section, it's an area that once housed visiting officers. They changed it over to house their special prisoners. It's totally separate from the other cells, apparently staffed with the new Brigadier's people."

"But what about the casualties?"

"We believe there were twelve prisoners in this area when we entered the complex. The Brigadier's locked himself in with them. We made contact but he won't negotiate. Says he'll kill a prisoner every hour until we arrange safe passage for him out of the UK. There are five less heat signals than when we started monitoring the area. I think he's making good on his threat."

"What do you think; anyway we can get into that area other than that door?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked Tosh.

Tosh ignored the question and continued to scan through the schematics. When she finally looked up, her face was grim. "I can see only one possibility. There's a ventilation shaft that runs through that area. It's about three feet in diameter. It'll be tight, but I think I should be able to squeeze through there."

Jack was horrified. "No way are you going in there alone Tosh. That Brigadier is a madman, I won't allow it."

Tosh didn't see any other solution. "Look we either barge in through the front door which is sure to be booby trapped or we at least try to take him by surprise."

Jack shook his head in anger. "I can't allow…."

Tosh gasped, "Oh no! Another heat sign has disappeared."

The Brigadier checked his watch. "3 am. He's been eliminating a prisoner every hour on the hour since 23:00 hours."

"There really isn't any other choice, Jack."

Jack took the laptop from Tosh and looked carefully at the building plans. "I hate to admit it, but I think Tosh has found the only other way into that part of the base. But I have an idea that might help ensure that our Brigadier is distracted," he said smiling at Tosh.

Tosh immediately sensed what Jack intended to do. "You can't Jack. That's just suicidal."

"Yes it is, but at least in my case, it won't be permanent."

It was another hour before Gwen, Owen and John arrived at the safe house. John was exhausted and in a lot of pain. Before John could object, Owen had injected him with a pain killer and sedative.

"Let's get him settled," Owen ordered two of the men who had come to get meet the car. One man, who was one of the most muscle-bound people Owen had ever seen, picked up Ianto. Gwen's eyes were as big as saucers as the giant strode up the steps of the house as if he were carrying a bag of groceries.

"Probably best if we stayed on his good side," Owen snarked to Gwen.

"Oh that's Stanley," the other man remarked, "he's Lethbridge-Stewart's personal trainer. Good bloke, wouldn't hurt a fly."

As the second man walked toward the house Gwen turned to look at Owen. "I still think we should stay on his good side,' Owen said.

They entered the house to find that one of the rooms had been modified into something approaching a hospital space. John was already lying on an adjustable bed and there was a woman taking attaching him to a medical monitor.

"Right, I'm Martha Jones and you must be Dr. Harper," she said extending her hand.

Gwen introduced herself and listened politely to them shop talk for a bit. Duw, she was tired. She yawned before she realized what she had done. "Sorry, long day…"

Martha and Owen both insisted that she go get some sleep. "I'll be watching your friend the rest of the night, so once I finish getting briefed by Dr. Harper I'll be sending him to bed as well. Doctor's orders," Martha said smiling.

Gwen had to admit that getting some sleep sounded very appealing. As she walked out the door she heard Martha and Owen discussing John's condition. Frankly, she couldn't make sense of most of what they were saying.

"His blood pressure numbers are OK but I'm a little concerned about the airway respiratory rate."

Jack, Tosh and Lethbridge-Stewart finally arrived at the UNIT base. Tosh was quickly equipped with an infrared head lamp, a pouch of tools, a small but powerful rifle and several concussion grenades. Jack slipped a comm over her ear. "Assuming that everything goes as planned, once you are through the ducts and are ready to enter the hallway, signal us. We'll save our major distraction for then."

Tosh nodded. She was scared but there was no way she was going to back out. Too much depended on her getting through and disabling or killing the rogue Brigadier. And she was the only one who could do it.

As she turned away to follow a soldier over to the far end of the facility, Jack grabbed her and hugged her tight. "Don't take any chances. I need you back in one piece. If anything happens to you…" his voice breaking as he spoke.

For the first time in months, Tosh felt herself sympathizing with Jack.


	23. Stone Cold Bluff

******SUMMARY: The attack on the UNIT base and the aftermath. **RATING: PG-13

A/N: Last Chapter - an epilogue will follow in a few days that ties up most of the loose ends.

* * *

Tosh crawled through the narrow ductwork on her belly for what seemed like hours. If she had been able to raise her head, the small infrared headlamp would have allowed her to see ahead, but as it was her total concentration was on silently inching forward. Her comm crackled her ear.

"The next vent on your right opens into the room just beyond where the Brigadier is located," Jack said quietly. "Once you are in the room and ready to advance let me know and I'll create the diversion."

"Ok," Tosh whispered.

She reached where the opening should be and felt along the wall until she found the grillwork. Turning her head aside her headlamp illuminated the grill and the room beyond. It looked like a briefing room, empty except for long tables arranged in rows as well as a lectern and white board placed at one end. She was just able to reach down and grab the small pouch of tools clipped to her waist. Extracting what Jack had dubbed her 'sonic screwdriver' Tosh used her more modest laser tool to remove the screws holding the grill in place. She struggled to loosen the grill, finally freeing it in cloud of dust that had gathered on it. The opening was too small for her to fit through so she began to cut through the particle board next to the vent.

A shot rang out from close by. "He's executed another prisoner Tosh, how much more time do you need?"

"Just a few more minutes, Jack. I'll signal you when I'm ready." She continued to work until she had cut off enough of the wall to make an opening. She carefully lowered herself down to the floor and wiped her sweat covered face. As she unclipped the rifle from her back and began to load it, the unthinkable happened. Tosh sneezed.

"Who's back there," she heard a voice shout from the next room.

"_Shit," _Tosh thought as she activated her com. "Jack, I need that diversion now, right now," she hissed as she sought cover behind a lectern. Though her hands were shaking, Tosh continued to load her rifle.

"On my way."

John woke up from a deep sleep. He looked around the room in confusion. Expensive walnut furniture and deep green curtains; where was he? Gradually he remembered leaving the Hub with the Torchwood team and being carried, once, or was that twice?

He noticed the monitor to his right and wondered if he was in some type of private hospital. The door opened and he recognized Dr. Harper as he came into the room with another woman.

"Well you're up at last."

"Where am I?" John croaked out. Owen poured some water into a cup and helped John to sit up and drink a little of it. He introduced Martha who was busy replacing John's saline drip.

"You're going to be here for some time recovering from your surgery. Do you remember that?" John hesitated then nodded. John was able to answer some basic questions, but seemed to have to think about the answers each time before he gave them.

Martha wondered just how much John actually remembered.

"John, what do you do for a living?"

John hesitated. He couldn't remember. Something to do with…"I'm a tour director, in Edinburgh."

"How long have you been doing that?"

"Years, I guess. I don't know really."

Further questioning revealed that he had no memory of being an assassin, or his time with UNIT, or even his real origins.

"Do you know who Dr. Harper is?"

He was able to remember the name Torchwood, but also had no memory of working there.

He did remember Carlos, and asked about his whereabouts.

"He'll be coming to see you shortly. You need to get plenty of rest so you are up and about when he arrives."

John pressed Owen for more information about Carlos, but Owen dodged the questions since he really didn't even know if Carlos was dead or alive. John began to get agitated and Martha finally administered him another sedative.

Leaving the room, Owen and Martha debated John's condition.

"I think his activities as an assassin may have vanished with the implant," Martha speculated.

"I don't know about that," Owen replied as he told her about the sudden reemergence of John's recollections of Myfanwy and Janet.

"This makes sorting him out much more difficult. Can he be held accountable for actions he took while under outside influences?" Martha wondered.

"Not to mention the problem of whether he will remember more about Torchwood or being an assassin. And as for Carlos, who knows what he remembers."

"I suppose we'll just have to see how it goes."

"Yeah, with not only John but Carlos and whether Jack and Tosh can rescue him in time," Owen said as he thought about all the possible outcomes of the attack on the UNIT base.

Owen looked at his watch and realized that three hours had passed since he had parted ways with Jack and Tosh. Surely they should have heard something by now. But neither he nor the retired UNIT officer at the house had had any communication with the team at the UNIT base.

Owen's guts churned. This couldn't be good.

Tosh was still crouched behind the lectern as a door at the far side of the room opened flooding the space with light. She knew that she was behind the only possible hiding place in the room and that the Brigadier was likely to shoot through it to her in a matter of moments. She closed her eyes and prepared for the inevitable.

She opened them a moment later as a powerful explosion shook the building.

"What the hell," the Brigadier muttered. She could hear footsteps moving away from her. She peaked out from the lectern to see that the room stood empty and as she stood up and primed her rifle, she heard shouting coming from the other room.

"Hey Brigadier, did you miss me?"

"No! This is impossible, you're dead!"

"And yet here I am, big as life."

Tosh moved carefully toward the voices coming from the next room. She could just see the Brigadier from the doorway. As she lined him up in her sights she saw him laugh and pull his gun. "Not for long," the Brigadier snarled as he shot Jack directly in the head.

Tosh let off a clean head shot at the Brigadier. He remained standing for a moment, shock and disbelief on his face. Then his head caught on fire and he disintegrated before Tosh's eyes.

As Tosh entered the room she was met with the remains of a slaughter. Ten bodies lay face down in a neat row. Each had been shot execution style with a single bullet to the back of the head. Two living prisoners were huddled in terror in a corner of the room. Neither was Carlos. "Stay where you are," she told them. "Help is on the way."

Jack was dead but was already beginning to show signs of coming back to life. As for the Brigadier, all that was left was a brain implant. A large complex implant identical to John's.

"_Hell, he's an assassin. Which means there's someone else running this whole scheme," _Tosh thought as her heart sunk. This wasn't the end of their search, this was only the beginning.

Tosh hit her comm and gave Lethbridge-Stewart and his team the all-clear signal. Tosh knelt by Jack to wait for him to revive. She'd let the UNIT team identify the victims, though in her heart she knew one of them was Carlos.


	24. Closer

**SUMMARY: The future of the characters is explored. Most questions are answered, but a few remain.**

A/N: I think most of the your questions are answered here. The remaining issues may be addressed at a later time (but not immediately). If you are confused, you might want to look at the title of Chapter 24 and google the meaning of this poker term . I hope you enjoyed Treachery. I will be putting together a PDF and will post a notice on my home page.

**Thanks to everyone who has commented thus far. Your feedback is always appreciated. If you've been lurking, this is your last chance to comment.**

* * *

"Do you think what we did was ethical?" Owen asked several years later as the team ate dinner in the Hub.

"What else could we do?" Jack replied. "Lock him away for deeds he didn't remember and had no real control over doing?"

Owen raised an eyebrow at the irony of Jack's statement.

Gwen frowned. "I'm not sorry we let him go, but it troubles me that we can't keep closer tabs on him."

"We get feed from the cctv near their house several times a week," Tosh reminded them. "So it's not like he's out there totally unsupervised."

Jack smiled. They'd had this discussion many times and always came to the same conclusion. It wasn't a perfect solution, but with cooperation from John's partner, things had gone smoothly for the last three years.

It had taken a long time for Jack to earn back the respect of his team. Taking care of Ianto/John's future had gone a long way to healing the breach of trust that he had with all of them. Though Jack would never admit it, it was clear that he was financing John's current living expenses out of his own pocket but not interfering with his life in any way.

Late at night, Jack would often sit alone in his office at watch the latest video of John and his partner walking together down their street. They both looked happy and tan and in love. Sometimes he would feel comforted knowing that John was safe and content, but more often his eyes would fill with tears as he contemplated how much his mistakes had cost John and the team and even himself.

Tw Tw Tw

John Thomas stretched lazily and looked over at his lover sleeping beside him. He smiled as he watched the young man' chest rise and fall in a constant rhythm. He still wasn't sure how they had ended up living in a villa on the southern coast of Spain.

They never seemed to run out of money, a generous though not extravagant amount was wired to their joint account on the first of each month. Carlos reminded him that he had a sizeable inheritance from his uncle, but it was controlled by a trustee in Rio.

"I don't know why we can't get a bit more so we could live it up. I always dreamed of having a sports car and…"

"Not this again, please John," Carlos teased good naturedly. "You and your fast cars. Next you'll want beautiful blondes and fancy suits."

John chuckled. "I know, outlandish ideas, but sometimes I dream I'm a secret agent carrying out daring missions."

Carlos bit his lower lip in worry. "Would you trade this life with me for a more exciting one?"

"Gods no, of course I wouldn't. You're my constant in a confusing world. The love of my life."

Carlos smiled.

Tw Tw Tw

"You know, I was reluctant to use Carlos this way, but he seems happy enough, don't you think?" Jack asked.

Owen nodded his head. "I can't believe how easy it was to get him to agree to go along with the back-story. I always worry that he'll grow bored with John or begin to deteriorate and then, well I don't know what we'll do."

"Don't go looking for trouble Owen, it will find us easily enough in due course," Gwen chastened.

"I don't think you need to worry about that," Jack replied. "Compared to being a prisoner at UNIT or Carlos' life before that, he's got a very cushy existence. An existence, I might add, that relies on the continuing goodwill of Torchwood. He's no fool, without us he'd be on the streets hustling in no time."

In the aftermath of the attack on the UNIT base, international pressure from the highest ranks of the UN and NATO assured that the illegal experiments were quietly hushed up. The soldiers who attacked the Hub (those that survived at least) were retconned and set up in new lives. Their families were told they had died on a classified mission to Afghanistan.

Lethbridge-Stewart came out of retirement to direct reforms to the UNIT command structure, reforms that would prevent a single senior officer from gaining total control of an entire base in the future. The scientists and other UNIT personnel who had played major roles in either the cloning or assassin projects were interrogated, and then retconned or imprisoned for life.

Tw Tw Tw

John stroked Carlos' face as they rested after making love.

"You really are my bright sun, though why you had to go and get that tattooed on your chest is beyond me."

"_No, no John don't go there," _Carlos thought. Carlos reached over and pulled John on top of him. "_No thinking about tattoos, or secret agents, or flying dinosaurs."_

Carlos wasn't sure if he loved John as much as John loved him, but he did feel genuine affection for him. There were moments when he regretted that his choices in life were being controlled by others, but compared to the demands of a pimp in Rio or being a prisoner of the Brigadier in London, Torchwood was a fairly benign dictator. All in all, it was a better ending to his story than he expected.

"_Who am I kidding," _he thought. "_I'd be dead by now if I hadn't been kidnapped by the Brigadier. If the drugs hadn't killed me, a trick or my pimp would have eventually done me in." _

As the surviving clone, created only a week before the attack on UNIT, he had all of the original Carlos' memories with John. His controller implantation had been scheduled but never took place. Jack had explained to him that he was a clone, but it meant nothing at all to him. He reckoned since he was genetically identical to Carlos and had all his memories; he was as good as the 'real' Carlos.

Owen had warned him about the physiological instability of clones but he wasn't worried. Though he had promised to notify them if he had any unusual medical problems, he'd be damned if he was going to tell them more than they needed to know. The occasional nose bleeds and muscle weakness were nothing to worry about, even if they appeared to be increasing in frequency.

Tw Tw Tw

Three years on, and even with the help of M15, no trace of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's niece had been found. The remaining clone in London and the assassin in Washington were easily apprehended, but it was clear that neither had been programmed for their next mission. While the assassin was able to provide detailed information about the murders of several high level Ministers from Eastern European countries he had no information on why he was in Washington or who was his next target.

And despite their best efforts, no one had been able to identify the real source of the experiments. M15 thought it was probably the work of agents from a rogue state (Iran and North Korea were most frequently mentioned), but Jack wasn't convinced. Somewhere out there, a dangerous enemy was biding its time, just waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

And Torchwood would be ready.


End file.
